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Lockerbie disaster in Czech newspaper
Kodera, Martin ; Cihlářová, Gabriela (advisor) ; Šírová, Tereza (referee)
The Lockerbie bombing, which happened in December 1988, brings an interesting and unique situation to Czechoslovakian newspapers. A US aircraft is destroyed over British territory, causing 270 people, mostly American and British citizens, to die. Both those countries are perceived as hostile in the media, given they belong to the West, whilst Czechoslovakia is part of the East. However, international terrorism is condemned regardless of the political situation. This paper describes how two biggest Czechoslovakian newspapers - Rudé právo and Mladá fronta - covered the subject. Reporting the incident has two major stages. The first one is informing about a plane crash which unveils as a bomb attack over time. The second stage is marked by suspicion that the explosive used was Czechoslovakian-made Semtex and possible links between Czechoslovakia and terrorist is hinted upon. While the first stage is covered without taking any sides, even though the scale of the coverage is much lower as the incident suggests, the second stage is marked by both newspapers taking a defensive stance against these speculations and are daily reporting about the efforts of Czechoslovakian officials to disprove this claim. The largest deviations from the objectivity criteria is a deviation in impartiality and not in facticity.
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