Accountability Keeps Odd Hours

Public broadcasting has acquired a rather specialized audience: people who are still following parliamentary procedure at 4:36 in the morning.

AP reports that Andrej Babiš's coalition unexpectedly advanced its funding overhaul in Friday's first reading, limiting opposition debate before that predawn vote. Thousands protested in Prague on Sunday.

Imagine the invitation to this exercise in civic participation. Doors open whenever we decide. Refreshments include whatever is left in the vending machine. Please bring identification, a constitutional objection and a plausible explanation for why you are not at work later.

An ordinary viewer might think the public part means being able to follow what is happening. A more efficient system would define it as being informed afterward that something happened. Consider the savings on chairs.

The proposal would replace broadcaster fees with state-budget funding and cut resources about fifteen percent. It is not law; critics fear political control, not a completed takeover established by this vote.

That distinction is worth keeping. You can object to the placement of a switch without claiming someone has already turned it off. Indeed, objecting before the switch is installed is often more productive than filing a beautifully documented complaint in the dark.

There is also a difference between asking a newsroom to account for its spending and arranging for it to worry about the mood of the people it covers. One asks whether the microphone was good value. The other makes the microphone wonder whether it ought to ask that next question.

Nothing about responsible public spending requires a general suspicion of daylight. If a proposal is excellent, surely it can survive being explained to people who have had breakfast.

They are, after all, the public. An awkward constituency to exclude from the reform of public broadcasting.