AMY GOODMAN: And this news from Czechoslovakia. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Prague every night for the last week to protest the appointment of a new general director of Czech Television. Inside, scores of journalists have been sleeping in the station since Christmas Eve to prevent management from seizing the station. They fear that the new appointment and the banning of key staff members from the premises will compromise the political independence of the station.

We go now to Jan Molacek, who is a reporter for foreign news of the publicly owned Czech TV station.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! in Prague. Welcome.

JAN MOLACEK: Hi, from Prague.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what’s happening as we speak?

JAN MOLACEK: Well, at the moment, the situation here in the newsroom of the Czech Television is very busy. We are working as usual. We are preparing our news bulletins. But obviously there are many, many more people than usual. There are TV crews, newspaper crews, journalists from virtually all over the world. Everybody’s interested in the situation. And also, there are a lot more staff here than usual, because people who were on the Christmas holidays came back as soon as they heard about what the management is trying to do. And we are basically trying to keep the newsroom, keep the news department building. We have heard rumors of the new management trying to employ force to gain control over the news department. We do not believe they would do anything as desperate as this, but we are still making sure that nothing will happen.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly did happen? Explain the politics of the situation. Who is the new person they’ve put in?

JAN MOLACEK: OK. The whole situation, the whole crisis, as I can recall it now, started last Wednesday, when the Czech Television Council, which is the body that has the control function of the Czech Television, consists of nine members, appointed a new director general, Mr. Jiri Hodac. And we disagree with this decision. When I say we disagree, I mean we do not want to choose for ourselves who is going to be the director general of the Czech Television. This is not our job. But there are several points I would like to explain why we are protesting against this decision.

First of all, we believe that this decision was incompetent and politically motivated. There was a very short time between the dismissal of the old director and appointment of the new one. Basically, within less than one week, the council managed to fire the old director, launch a competition for the position, accept more than 30 applications, assess them all, conduct the interviews with the applicants and choose the new director. This is, in our opinion, impossible. This is an institution with 3,000 employees, with budget more than 5 billion Czech crowns, which is — in Czech Republic, this is a quite large institution. And we just believe that it deserves better treatment than this.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the independence of journalism in Czechoslovakia?

JAN MOLACEK: Well, I think the situation is quite good, as now we are — I mean, I’ve been working in the field of TV journalism for two-and-a-half years now. I have never had to give in to any pressures from political figures or political parties. My editors never try to influence the outcome of my work, my stories.

However, with the appointment of Mr. Jiri Hodac, we very much fear the situation might change. And I’ll tell you why. We have experience with Mr. Jiri Hodac from earlier this year. He held the position of the news department director here at Czech Television for four months. He resigned himself in June. And just to give you an example, I mean, the very first step he took in this position, for example, was firing one of our anchormen who worked for a discussion program. He fired him one day after Prime Minister Zeman and the leader of Civic Democratic Party, Vaclav Klaus, appeared in the discussion program and complained about the way the discussion was led. So, to me and most of my colleagues, this is a clear evidence of political interference into the journalist’s work. And we just don’t think that when Jiri Hodac was — he basically had to resign after this thing and other things happened in the news department under his leadership. We just don’t believe that he should, just about four months afterwards, become the general director of the Czech Television.

AMY GOODMAN: And the journalists who are occupying the station now, about 50 of them, will they remain sleeping at the station?

JAN MOLACEK: Yes, undoubtedly. We do not actually occupy the station. We do not prevent anybody from entering or leaving. The newly appointed director or the director of news appointed by him, Jana Bobosikova, to whom we also protest, they are allowed, of course, to enter the building, leave the building. We do not prevent anybody from doing so, yes, but we are staying on the premises, and we are also staying overnight. I, for myself, haven’t left the building since the 24th of December morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jan Molacek, I want to thank you for joining us, reporter for the foreign news desk of the publicly owned Czech TV station, reporting to us from inside Czech Television, where he’s been since Christmas Eve, speaking to us from Prague, Czechoslovakia.

And on the home front, more than a thousand people gathered last night in a rally in New York to protest the firing of the general manager of Pacifica station WBAI, as well as the subsequent firing of the program director and the Morning Show producer, and the banning of several longtime station staff.