ORF Director General Roland Weißmann will set up an ethics committee over the chat affair surrounding the resigned ORF TV News Editor-in-Chief Matthias Schrom. He said this in a letter to employees on Friday. In collaboration with the existing ethics council, the committee should develop a ‘Code of Conduct’, which summarizes the existing rules of conduct and provides for further tightening if necessary, she says.
The focus should be on dealing with political decision-makers in a journalistic context. The events of the past few days have raised questions about possible political influence over the ORF and its reporting, Weissmann said in the employee information sheet. “We cannot and will not allow that independence to be tested,” he says.
“Wishes and desires should not play a role”
The editors of the ORF had previously requested in a resolution to “immediately” re-advertise all three editor-in-chief positions in the multimedia newsroom. The tender must be independently and externally supervised and the order must be made in consensus with the editors, free from political influence. “Wishes and desires of the foundation board may not play a role in these appointments”, it says.
Weissmann does not respond to this question. “With the upcoming personnel decisions in the ORF information, I will of course make sure that only objective criteria are used and without any outside influence,” he promises. It is still unclear who will take over the management of the multimedia department for domestic policy, foreign policy, economics and chronicle. These features will be announced by the end of the year, Weißmann said in an APA interview recently.
New media magazine on the way?
The resolution passed at an editorial meeting on Thursday also calls for the introduction of a mainstream media magazine on TV. So far, the ORF only has a monthly media magazine called “Doublecheck” on Ö1. According to “Standard”, satirist Florian Scheuba is already working on a concept for a TV media magazine. Scheuba believes that such a format would be an essential platform for the ORF, including for self-critical self-portraits. He wanted to approach the subject through satire. He is working on the concept with the satirical platform “Tagespresse” and the research platform “Dossier”. The question is whether the program will actually be realized.
“The events of the past few days have greatly affected the credibility of the ORF. Therefore, everything must be done now to regain the trust of our public,” said the ORF editorial. The chat affair – Schrom exchanged views with ex-FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache in 2019 as ORF 2 editor-in-chief about the content of ORF reporting and FPÖ staff requests – must be transparent and publicly processed. The ORF journalists welcome Schrom’s resignation.
Source: Krone
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