Belgian news channel RTBF refused to broadcast the inauguration speech of US President Donald Trump live, having claimed he spread a “racist, far-right, xenophobic” message.
RTBF broadcasts in the Francophone part of Belgium, where there is a strict “cordon sanitaire mediatique” in place – a policy to combat anything that resembles, in its eyes, far-right talking points.
Aurélie Didier, deputy editorial director of news at RTBF, told TV magazine Ciné-Télé-Revue on January 21: “We have seen on several occasions that Donald Trump has made racist, far-right, xenophobic remarks, incitement to hatred as well. We decided to broadcast his speech slightly later to take the time for analysis.
“It makes it possible to avoid trivialising such remarks, to normalise them. It’s not about censorship, RTBF doesn’t censor.”
According to Didier, his news desk cross-referenced the analyses of several experts, who decided that Trump made racist remarks, including saying that migrants “ate dogs and cats”.
The news desk journalists were also said to have taken offence at the fact that Trump did not recognise the results of the 2020 presidential election, “which is in effect a challenge to the American democratic system”, Didier said.
They also said he “regularly makes misogynistic remarks about women”.
Didier insisted: “The RTBF is not pro or anti-Trump. We do an impartial job. We highlight Donald Trump’s strengths, but at the same time, we frame his words because we believe it is necessary.”
Not everyone in the south of Belgium agreed with that. Georges-Louis Bouchez, President of the centre-right Liberal MR Party responded on X, saying: “There is a real problem at RTBF.”
“Who are these experts who determine right and wrong? One may not agree with the project of a new president of the United States but nothing can justify a democratically elected president receiving this treatment from small thought leaders,” he posted.
“The RTBF‘s news department is not the Ministry of Censorship and Propaganda.”
A day earlier, Bouchez was already putting pressure on the RTBF, demanding the broadcaster should get less in state subsidies. The time of “all these gifts are over”, he said.
Investigative journalist Alessandra d’Angelo said on X: “Our public service is definitely sick. Woke cancer in the terminal phase!!!”
Former politician and pundit Drieu Godefridi described RTBF as: “The only one of its kind in the world, along with North Korea!
“Can you imagine the enormity of the process, its arrogance, its grotesqueness? Are the Walloons – alone in the world! – poor little mentally handicapped people incapable of judging for themselves?” he wondered.
Godefridi claimed the public broadcaster was a state within a state and deserved to be “slapped with sanctions”.