Miksic: HTV Favouring SDP’s Ivo Josipovic

In the past month the national television aired more than 30 reports about presidential candidate Josipovic, candidate Miksic stresses.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – Even though campaigns for the presidential elections have not yet officially begun in Croatia, candidate Boris Miksic already has serious criticism about the way in which the Croatian Television has been covering the announced candidates so far. Concretely, candidate Ivo Josipovic. Miksic, who has announced his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections, issued a statement pointing to, as he said, bias and subjectivity of the Croatian national television in presenting candidates who have so far announced their candidacy. 

- In the past month the HTV aired more than 30 reports about presidential candidate Ivo Josipovic, neglecting and putting in the background other candidates, including myself – Miksic said in his statement.

He also says that a HTV team taped an interview with him in Beli Manastir on August 3 where he built a factory of biodegradable plastic and the interview related to economic issues and the difficulties Croatia is facing.

- The editor of the HTV’s central news programme refused to air the interview, saying it had political annotations. The question is what are the motives of the HTV’s central news when they evidently favour the SDP’s president candidate, Ivo Josipovic, in the past month, not only to my detriment, but also to the detriment of other candidates who have so far announced their candidacies – Miksic stressed.

He recalls that thus the HTV not only violates the rules of objectively informing the Croatian public, but also violates the Law on the Croatian Radio and Television which in Article 7 explicitly says that the HTV is obliged to “truthfully, wholesomely, without bias and timely inform the public of facts, events and occurrences… of public interest” and that it has to “without bias cover political, economic … and other issues, enabling an equal representation of stances of different sources”.

- Removing the interview with me in my factory from the news programme is a drastic example, when it comes to presidential candidates, of violating rules of “unbiased and timely informing of the public” and the “equal representation of differences of different sources” – Miksic stressed, adding that because of such favouring of a candidate to the detriment of others, including himself, he wants to warn the Croatian public of the already seen media manipulation of the most important media company in the country which is for the most party financed by subscribers. He will also sent his protest letter to the HRT Programme Council.