False information

Reporters Without Borders attacks Hafenecker

Fritz Hausjell, President of Reporters Without Borders, has expressed "more than just concern" about the media understanding of FPÖ spokesperson Christian Hafenecker. He had accused the ORF team around Dieter Bornemann of "crude untruths and unfounded insinuations".

The FPÖ media spokesman had said verbatim: "Fortunately, we live in a parliamentary democracy in which voters are the sovereign with their votes, and not in a soviet republic in which an ORF editorial board, the failed Green Climate Council or other committees that are not democratically legitimized to do so set the direction, even if some left-wing parts of the ORF management may dream of it."

Hausjell then clarified on Monday that Bornemann was not a "self-appointed council". In addition, journalists are not de facto pragmatized, as Hafenecker had claimed. "As the FPÖ's media spokesperson, you should know all too well that there is a law on the basis of which Mr. Dieter Bornemann was (repeatedly) elected ORF editorial chairman (...) If you do not want to understand and respect this, you disqualify yourself as a future government politician," Hausjell stated.

Falling behind in press freedom
According to Reporters Without Borders, Austria has fallen to 32nd place in the press freedom rankings. In order not to fall further behind, sufficient public funding and permanent independence of public broadcasting would be needed.

On Thursday, the SPÖ, Greens and NEOS want to submit a resolution to the Upper Austrian state parliament calling on the federal government to secure non-partisan press funding. In order to obtain a majority, they would need the support of the FPÖ or ÖVP.