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Self-praise, as you know, stinks, so this time I will help myself with the evaluation that was given on Monday, May 6 at the annual Journalism Awards.
“Thus, they contributed to the possible restoration of the judicial process and the enforcement of systemic changes in the Czech justice system, despite threats and intimidation. This is an exceptional investigative effort with a tangible social impact.”
Monday’s announcement pleased us twice. Slopné was not only appreciated by the expert jury in the Investigative category. The podcast series, which was created under the direction of the 5:59 team, also collected the most votes in a public vote, which was looking for a contribution that had “the greatest social impact or fundamentally contributed to strengthening citizens’ rights” in the past year.
As the quoted laudatio already suggests, we are not only reaping awards for Slopná. Colleagues face indiscriminate pressure and the actors in the case try to discredit their work. One of the interviewees even accused them of trying to bribe him. We have explained why such a construction is pointless here.
It is striking that the judge and the prosecutor who were in charge of the case immediately began to juggle accusing the interviewee of being a recidivist.
The journalist’s award for Slopná is thus above all a symbolic satisfaction, but at the same time it also carries a lesson.
She confirmed to us that it makes sense to focus even on seemingly lost cases. And so the half-forgotten murder from the Moravian-Slovak border appeared from the beginning. Reporters Jelínková and Havranová did not let their skeptical voices (I admit, one of them was mine) discourage them, and here is the result.
However, we have to wait until next month, when the court – perhaps finally – will decide whether their work will really contribute to the renewal of the process.
Night work
Since we are surfing on a positive wave, I will add a story that we have also moved significantly in the past week.
Pavel Tuleja, an academic nominated for the Minister of Science, claimed that his doctoral student was responsible for his texts in predatory journals. Colleague Lukáš Valášek delved into the depths of the internet on Thursday night and blasted his defense on Friday. In addition, he brought to light the suspicion that Tuleja and his colleagues secured an inflow of money through predatory titles. And to make matters worse, he drew attention to the deep Chinese trail behind the aforementioned predatory periodicals. A few hours after publication, we had to update the headline of his article. Newly it read: “The discovery after which Tuleja left.”
Even in this case, he did not let the counter-strike wait for him for long. The University of Silesia in Opava, where Pavel Tuleja is vice-rector, stood up for him. He will turn to lawyers and his own ethics commission. But now they are clear. We are said to have committed “a whole series of grossly speculative statements and defamatory allegations”.
In their response, however, they somehow neglected to list the entire series.
It is an all the more paradoxical attack that it came after Tuleja himself apologized, withdrew his nomination as a minister and offered the university to resign as vice-chancellor. So we’ll see…
Liquid disposal
Let’s face it, Tulej’s lightning retreat is rather an exception. As a rule, the ice only bends with a longer distance. As in the case of the black billboard by the D4 highway.
It has been almost three years since Seznam Zprávy drew attention to the fact that the ANO movement in its pre-election campaign is also using an illegal billboard located right next to the D4 highway in the direction from Prague to Písek. Nothing happened for a long time, so we were reminded a week ago that the large-screen advertisement is still in place, despite the previous promise of the Directorate of Roads and Highways to have it removed.
And lo and behold, after article #2, the billboard disappeared. If I count correctly, only two days were enough.
Just as no one reported on the black advertising banner before, no one is now reporting on its quick disposal either.
Which doesn’t necessarily matter. We don’t need to know every move of the bureaucratic shimmy. We’ll totally get over it when we see him really swinging.
Now, let the other illegal signs lining Czech roads start disappearing at the same speed.
We should have some tips…
What we also watched
Flats and punishment. In the so-called Brno housing case, which was mapped in detail at the time by colleagues Lukáš Valášek and Adéla Jelínková, the first sentences were handed down: two people received conditional and monetary sentences for bribery. I would just like to remind you that the case is closely related to the case of the former chairman of the Housing Commission of the Brno-střed district and ODS politician Otakar Bradáč, in which the police are prosecuting several other persons.
Evidence wall. In the past week, we also returned to the corruption case surrounding hospital contracts in Ústík and Jihlava. The investigation, which has been somewhat neglected in the media, is showing interesting developments. During the interrogation by the police, four of the ten accused bowed their heads and fully or partially confessed. Which, combined with the hidden camera footage and secured bribes for the defense, is an insurmountable wall of evidence.
Drones with a question mark. Colleague Jiří Pšenička described at the beginning of the week that the Military Police purchased ten drones for aerial reconnaissance. Looking at the Ukrainian battlefield, the move is understandable and difficult to attack. If, of course, the Ministry of Defense did not buy the machine without a public tender. And if they weren’t supplied by a company in which the influential national security adviser Tomáš Pojar was an executive for over five years.
Hackers with Russian flag. For the first time in history, the Czech Republic linked hacker attacks with the Russian secret service GRU, which is also behind the explosions in Vrbětice. Based on sources from the security community, we described the Russian hacking operation in detail in the text of Cybernetic Vrbětica.
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