How do you challenge the mainstream media? Czech startups are finding out.
An odd thing happened here at the end of April.
On a drizzly Monday afternoon, thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched through the Czech capital’s medieval streets and filled one of its largest squares, protesting against alleged manipulation of the justice system.
The next day’s front page headline in the country’s biggest broadsheet daily? “Big fines for weed-ridden gardens.” News of the demonstration was buried on an inside page, in a brief item.
Odd, certainly, but not unexpected. The broadsheet in question, Mladá fronta DNES, belongs to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. So do more than 20 other publications, a radio station, and two TV channels.
Mr. Babiš, the second-richest man in the Czech Republic, is not the only billionaire who sees value in owning a media empire. He and three other tycoons own the lion’s share of Czech print publications, popular news websites, and commercial broadcasting operations. One of them, Marek Dospiva, once explained his purchase of
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