Possible head of RTVS: Is it substantiated that the Earth is round? | iRADIO

The highest civil servant of the department after the Minister of Culture said that even people who think the Earth is flat should get space in the media.

“Is it proven that the Earth is round? I’m seriously asking, is it substantiated? Have you been in space? You weren’t there, neither was I, I don’t know,” said Lukáš Machala in Monday’s Reporters program, which is broadcast by Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS). In recent days, the Slovak media has identified him as a possible future director of this institution. However, Machala himself denied it.

Discussing the flat earth, he continued: “The available sources are, do you trust them one hundred percent? What are the sources? And we are at the philosophical… I think that the space of independent journalism is exactly about questioning as many things as possible and looking for answers to questions.” And he emphasized that every opinion should be given space as long as it does not violate ethics or laws.

The Flat Earth Debate

Whether the Earth is round or flat was already solved in ancient Greece. Nevertheless, even today there are people who claim that our planet is a flat disk. A few years ago, American scientists even went to gatherings of supporters of this theory to find out why people think this way. And they found that people were convinced of the flatness of the Earth by watching videos on YouTube.

According to experts, it is the duty of journalists to bring objective, verified and balanced information. But there is a limit beyond which to cross.

“A public broadcaster broadcasting for our money cannot be the equivalent of Facebook, where everyone can talk about what they want, what they want and how they want. And he will beat his chest that his opinion is true,” media law expert Tomáš Kamenec explained to Reporters.

Petr Mrzena, head of news and journalism at Czech Television, recalls the period of covid, when a number of would-be experts in the field of epidemiology or healthcare appeared. Journalists had to consider a lot who to let on the air, or how much space to give them.

“If he has an opinion that is supported by a long publication activity, he is an educated person in the field that is being discussed, he is a renowned expert and the company considers him as such, then he should be given space. But if he is a vocal critic, for whom there is nothing else besides the fact that his opinion can be heard very loudly, then it is worth considering,” explained Petr Mrzena, head of news and journalism at Czech Television.

Who is Lukáš Machala?

Government politicians often argue that RTVS is biased. And Lukáš Machala himself speaks the same way. “In recent years, neither public television nor commercial television or commercial radio stations have provided the citizens of the Slovak Republic with objective news and a balanced television public service,” he said in December.

“We will have to educate new journalists. They will not be able to be propagandists or activist journalists. I see it for at least eight years,” he noted.

Machala now belongs to the closest team of officials of the Minister of Culture Martina Šimkovičová (for the SNS). Previously, however, he was a media adviser to the head of the lower house and the leader of the SNS nationalists, Andrej Danek. He also held a high official position in the Ministry of Education. However, he quit after a month.

He later joined the Republika movement, which was founded by former members of Kotleb’s right-wing extremist ĽSNS. He broke up with them after sixteen months.

Machala spreads conspiracy theories, misinformation and hoaxes on his social networks. Maybe the illuminati are planning a third world war. “Several years ago, he shared the ‘revelation’ of a Czech anonymous website, according to which Muslim migrants are being sent to Europe by the Illuminati,” the Slovak Denník N. described last year.

He also believes in the conspiracy theory about chemtrails, i.e. powder from airplanes. According to Denník N, he tried to prove their alleged existence by experimenting with a snowball that failed to melt over a candle flame. He was also active during the covid-19 pandemic, when, according to a Slovak server, he spread fictitious numbers of the number of victims, which were supposed to prove that far fewer people were allegedly dying of covid.

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