Dasvidaniya, Nečas

Unlike in the collapse of the governments of Stanislav Gross and Mirek Topolánek, it's not possible to attribute Petr Nečas's departure to the media. The state prosecutors and police are clearly driving the process this time. Some media outlets did try, though, to grease the wheels by urging Nečas to resign. Sorry to pick on HN again, but it's worth noting that it continued the practice it established in the recent presidential elections of making bold editorial comments in quasi-news stories on the front page. On Jan. 11 and Jan. 25 of this year, it endorsed Karel Schwarzenberg for president on its front page. Last Fri. and again today (only in its early edition), it used Page One to call for Nečas's resignation. Normally, such political statements are reserved for a paper's editorial pages. If the CR now gets a more pro-Russian government, perhaps HN can explain on its front page why and how it contributed to this.