Governance reforms, restructures & impartiality proposals

Seychelles: SBC board expresses serious concerns over new bill

A new bill is a potential threat to the SBC’s independence, the public broadcaster’s board said in a statement. The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation Bill was gazetted last week, and is described in the explanatory statement as seeking “to establish a modern, independent, editorially autonomous, and financially sustainable public broadcasting institution capable of serving the democratic, cultural, social, and educational needs of all the people of Seychelles in the digital age.” 

However, in a statement provided to PMA, the SBC board said the bill “may have the opposite effect and could weaken the institutional independence” of SBC. Of paramount concern are governance reforms. Under the current system, the board is made up of seven members, including the chair. While the president appoints five of these members (including the chair), three are nominations put forward by the independent Constitutional Appointments Authority. Under the new terms, the president would appoint five of the 11 board members. Those candidates would be put forward by a three-person select committee, whose members are also appointed by the president. The select committee would also be responsible for recommending the chair and vice-chair. It’s feared this would place “greater influence over appointments in the hands of the Executive,” the board said. “An independent public broadcaster should be governed through appointment mechanisms that are transparent, merit-based and insulated from political influence,” the board said. 

The board was further concerned over various aspects of the bill, including the lack of a guarantee over safeguarded funding and the removal of “an explicit reference to the Corporation’s role in upholding the values and principles embodied in the Constitution of Seychelles”. While welcoming the bill’s ambition to modernise the SBC, the board said “modernisation should not come at the expense of institutional independence.” 

There has been wider condemnation of the bill, which didn’t go through any formal consultation process or multistakeholder engagement. One political party, the Seychelles United Movement, said the bill was “a Trojan horse dressed as reform”, and that it would concentrate “board appointments in the hands of the President”. 

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Hungary: New PM demands heads of MTVA resign over new scandal

Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, has called on the two CEOs of MTVA to resign, after it was found the national broadcaster’s editor-in-chief authorised programming that sought to discredit Magyar’s Tisza party. Uncovered by RTL, ahead of April’s election, the news director Zsolt Németh said right-wing analysts should be brought in, and coverage should also focus on the “Tisza energy plan” – a policy document that Tisza said was invented by Index, a media outlet with close links to the incumbent, Viktor Orbán. 

Following the leaked communications, Magyar said “After it was proven that the materials discrediting Tisza in the public media were prepared on the instructions of the leaders, CEOs Dániel Papp and Anita Altorjai must leave immediately!” 

Magyar was recently asked in parliament why MTVA executives remain in post, to which he said they were being given a chance to leave. If they don’t, Magyar said legislative processes would be kickstarted to bring about their removal. The broadcaster – which many independent observers said was a state outlet acting as an Orbán-Fidesz outlet – is also being subjected to a complete audit which will examine its financing and operations. 

While according to AFP, the coverage has become more neutral on MTVA, there are still drastic reforms needed. According to one law expert, new media regulation will be essential to undo the Orbánisation of Hungary’s media environment, which saw the removal of a pluralist media landscape, and the creation of a centralised media regulator. 

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France: Proposals to improve PSM impartiality

17 proposals have been presented to improve the impartiality of public broadcasting in France. Six months ago, in parallel to the turbulent parliamentary inquiry into public broadcasting, the media regulatory authority, Arcom, commissioned the legal expert Vincent Lasserre to examine the impartiality of public media.

Lasserre proposed 17 measures to clearly define what impartiality means for public broadcasting and how to improve it. Inspired by the BBC, the former vice-president of the State Council stressed the need to centralise the different ethical charters into a single document, applicable to the whole French public broadcasting system. His measures also called for more transparency on their editorial processes and a strengthening and reform of media ethical committees. He also suggested that the positions taken on social media by journalists working for public media should be more closely regulated, without, however, infringing on their freedom of expression.

Following the presentation of the Lasserre report, the new Minister for Culture announced that concrete measures would be introduced by the summer, and Arcom has committed to drawing up a rapid action plan.

The two presidents of Radio France and France Télévisions welcomed the report positively, with France Télévisions President deeming the work ‘as demanding as it is kind-hearted, a real heart-warmer’.

At the same time, Arcom published a report on how citizens view the impartiality of public broadcasters. The study revealed that public opinion is far less divided than the debates of the Commission of Inquiry led by Charles Alloncle might suggest. Whilst between 26 and 36 per cent of those surveyed believe that the public media are biased, over 50 per cent of participants were unable to say. Private media were seen as more biased, leaning more to the right, whilst the public media are perceived as leaning more to the left.

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US: Job cuts at NPR amid restructure

Four percent of NPR’s content division is being cut, according to NPR’s media correspondent, David Folkenflik, which will see 10 journalists laid off and a further 18 accepting voluntary redundancy. It comes shortly after NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, announced a newsroom restructure, with the public radio network having to plug an $8 million dollar gap in its budget due to reduced subsidies from member stations. It comes after Congress rescinded federal funding last year. However, Maher said a subsequent surge in donations “really mitigated some of the hardest impacts of the loss of federal funding. …  And now it is our responsibility to ensure that we take that gift that they have given us and use this time to get to a place where we are sustainable for the future.”

NPR isn’t alone in having to contend with a restructure. As reported by Semafor, the new head of New York Public Radio has also overseen a raft of changes at one of the country’s largest public media stations. Christy Tanner has allegedly dismissed a number of senior executives from NYPR, though none have been made public. “In any evolution, there are necessary changes to help fuel growth and expansion, and I do not take those changes lightly,” Tanner told Semafor. 

With many local public radio stations also reeling from the rescission of federal funding, NPR’s sponsorship subsidiary, NPM, has announced a new project alongside PRX to help such stations find sponsorship for their podcasts. 

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