Not only the current state of the media, but also the entire history of their influence on the public has been taken to task by Petr Žantovský, an expert on the word, in his new book. The book, aptly titled Censorship versus Freedom of Speech, is more than a text for students of history and media. In fact, it is also a warningly raised index finger. With the advent of the so-called tabloids, which entered the Czechoslovak press hand in hand with the political changes in the late 1990s, journalistic ethics began to wither in the new Czech Republic, until today it has practically disappeared from the media, even the public media, for good. It has not been true for a long time that what is written is given. On the contrary, the established practice has become a simile - it lies as it prints and the paper can bear anything.
Please meet...
Petr Žantovský (1962) studied journalism, history and theory of mass media. He is the author of forty professional, popular and fiction books. He is currently an associate professor at the University of Economics in Prague. He teaches courses on censorship, freedom of speech, propaganda and disinformation, which has led him to explore the history of these disciplines and to seek a deeper insight into their current state. This has led to the creation of the unique publication presented in these lines, which is intended to open the eyes of readers. In spite of the present, dominated by one elite or another.
Freedom of expression and the right to know
The publication, which consists of three hundred pages of rich text divided into fourteen chapters, opens with a foreword by Žantovský, introducing how and why World Press Freedom Day came into being. He brings definitions from both the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including our 1993 Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms adopted by the Czech National Council, which states:
1/ Freedom of expression and the right to information are guaranteed
2/ Everyone has the right to express his opinions in words, writing, print, pictorial or other media and to seek, receive and impart ideas and information freely, regardless of frontiers
3/ Censorship is unacceptable
But the counterbalance is the other side of the same coin: the fact that freedom of speech brings responsibility on the part of those who spread it. This is clearly stated in the Declaration of Principles of Journalistic Conduct adopted by the Second World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists, which emphasizes that:
Respecting the truth and the public's right to the truth is the first duty of a journalist. In fulfilling this duty, journalists will always uphold the principles of freedom in the honest gathering and publishing of news
So many theories. But what about the practice, we ask. Petr Zantovsky then takes it from Adam, so to speak.
Censorship and its history
The first chapter of the book begins in 1559, when the Catholic Church issued the groundbreaking List of Forbidden Books, which was officially in force until 1966. This was a list of publications that Catholics forbade their faithful to read. So it is not for nothing that the cover of Zantovsky's publication is adorned with equestrian flames, devouring unfit writings. What follows is a description of censorship, which we divide into preliminary, subsequent and self-censorship . From the practices of the Austro-Hungarian period, the last two centuries follow, with the author's analysis culminating in our months and years, when all public space is strongly influenced by the so-called mainstream , and not only in all spheres of cultural life.
Through the chapter On the indexes of banned books, the curious reader will enter the fourth chapter about the legendary figure of the indomitable journalist Karel Havlíček Borovský and his experience with the restriction of speech and opinions by the ruling authorities. The history of censorship graduates through the Protectorate and its Press Supervisory Service to arrive at chapter eight, Czechoslovak Press Laws 1948-89, after a refresher on Orwell's Rules of the New World.
Manipulating public opinion and influencing the masses
Each of the chapters is interspersed with notes, observations and explanations as well as the views and reflections of the author himself. The chapter On Freedom of Thought is literally excellent, reminiscent of the current one, where Petr Žantovský recalls, in connection with the content of his book on censorship, the case of the historian and writer Vlastimil Vondruška, who, for his article on patriotism and treason, was placed on an unwritten but actually existing blacklist of people who hold different views than those demanded of them by the current media and political establishment. Through passages of Communication and Manipulation, Zantovsky goes on to reflect on the topic of so-called fake news and discusses so-called political correctness, which has become a worldwide obstacle to progress and a threat to society. He discusses On the Limits of Freedom of Opinion in Germany and analyzes in chapter twelve The Practice of the New Inquisition, the seminal work of the French sociologist Beoniste. The final two chapters of the book are aptly titled The Creeping Censorship and The Disease Called Censorship.
In conclusion, let's go back to the beginning
The current government unleashed overwhelming censorship activities in February 2022, when Russia's so-called special military operation in the Donbas began. Fiala, whose advisers gave him the idea of making himself extremely visible in the EU and on the international political stage, has taken on the role of an unquestioning supporter of Ukraine, at any cost, including at the expense of his own people.
Petr Žantovský analyses with an insider's pen the following censorship steps, fighting "disinformation" and "disinformers". Quote:
Prime Minister Fiala created the position of chief government censor, put Michal Klíma in that position, and gave him a unique task: to prepare a law against disinformation, which will include appropriate sanctions for those who spread it. Klíma failed, and for one reason only. No one was able to define the word disinformation for possible legislative use... Neither could another man, Tomáš Pojar, who was commissioned by the Prime Minister to do a similar job a year later. That was when the idea arose that the only way to get rid of the bearers and disseminators of undesirable ideas and opinions was to label them as a security risk. This also found projection in the fact that at the end of January 2025 the so-called Lex Ukraine VII was approved by the House of Commons. The government's bill was voted in its third reading by the coalition majority in the Chamber of Deputies.
This would not have been surprising if the so-called addendum defining the new crime of "unauthorized activity for foreign powers", consisting in the distribution of information about events and decision-making processes that do not fall under the rules of secrecy, had not been included in the approved text. What does this mean? That the Czech Parliament has exceeded the limits set by the Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, as well as other international declarations to which the Czech Republic, as a member country of the UN and the EU, has committed itself. As a result, it may mean that any journalistic or general publishing activity that does not conform to the current government doctrine will be qualified as undesirable activity for a foreign power with a penalty of up to five years in prison...
Political scientist and writer award
From the complimentary words about the work we have just studied, we select the following on the bookmark:
...a great contribution of the publication is the analysis of the ways of limiting freedom of speech in the Internet era (Petr Robejšek, political scientist)
...censorship is a symptom of a sick society, whose rulers defend themselves against ideas that they consider a threat to their hegemony. It is an urgent, necessary and timely work (Benjamin Kuras, writer)
Ivan Cerny
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