Cultural journalist and television host Andrejs Volmārs’ visit to “Suņu būda V2.0” programme turned out intense and short. As the host of the programme Artuss Kaimiņš said at the end of the recording: “He couldn’t talk about “Me too”, he could talk about the public media. What else? He couldn’t talk about anything. We could have touched on the Corner House, but he couldn’t talk about even that”.
At the start of the interview, Artuss Kaimiņš asked the experienced cultural journalist’s opinion of “Me too”, to which Andrejs Volmārs said this topic does not interest him. “Each case is unique, specific and individual. I don’t want to talk about that. It doesn’t interest me”.
When A. Kaimiņš mentioned that the Ministry of Justice has submitted to the Saeima the idea of criminalising sexual harassment, A. Volmārs said: “I’m more interested in other possible criminal acts, such as the disparaging of Latvia and desecration of Latvia’s state symbols. This is what interests me. I’m not interested in minor things many people are worried about.”
Answering A. Kaimiņš’s comment that “our five biggest portal pump this narrative”, A.Volmārs said this is happening because “it benefits them at the moment”. “It benefits the portals, not society. Portals need people’s attention, they need the views. These views translate into money.”
When asked about Russian language in public media, A. Volmārs posed a counter-question: “Why should there be Russian language in Latvian public media”. As the discussion about the use of Russian language in public media continued, LTV journalist mentioned that the host didn’t say this to the director of LTV and invited leaving LTV out of it. “The Code of Ethics does not allow me to criticise and evaluate. I cannot do this,” said Volmārs. When Kaimiņš objected by saying that this is not about private television, rather public media in general, Volmārs said:
“I told you, I signed a document. We are ending this conversation.”
As for bilingualism in public media, Volmārs said there should be Latvian language. However, when Kaimiņš asked if he remembers for how long this dialogue has continued in LTV and should there be only one language, Volmārs asked a counter-question: “Why are you asking me this? I’m not responsible for language use in LTV. Why are you asking me?” He then asked the host to change the topic of discussion. Kaimiņš said how Volmārs was avoiding questions for ten minutes, the latter made a laconic statement: “You know what – let’s end it here. Enough, thank you.”
The entire video can be viewed as a video here:
Also read: Latvian minister “sweats bullets”. Agnese Logina interviewed by A.Kaimiņš in “Suņu būda V2.0”
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