Despite the opposition from the editors and the SPÖ, Peter Westenthaler has been appointed to the new supervisory board of the Freedom Party at ORF.
A corresponding nomination was adopted by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. The former president of the FPÖ club replaces lawyer Niki Haas in the highest ORF committee. The committee is not new territory for Westenthaler, who currently appears as a political analyst and debater on oe24.tv. From 1999 he was a member of the then “ORF Board of Trustees”.
The ORF editorial staff had previously opposed Westenthaler’s appointment and asked the government to check whether it was compatible with the ORF law. According to “Presse” he has submitted a signed declaration of no objection. A board of trustees meeting is scheduled for next week, and Westenthaler is expected to attend.
In a clinch with the editors
In the run-up to his appointment, the 56-year-old criticized the public broadcaster. He spoke of a ‘propaganda machine’ that only keeps its distance from the FPÖ, and of discussion programs and selection of experts as ‘propaganda instruments’. The ORF editorial staff firmly rejected these “unfounded accusations” and reminded the ex-politician that as a board of directors he had to act without instructions in the interests of the ORF and not the FPÖ.
Source: Krone
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