Far-right Austrian: Let’s fire reporters who ‘don’t behave’

BERLIN – A member of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party wants to fire foreign correspondents working for public broadcaster ORF if they “don’t behave.”

Norbert Steger, a former party leader who now sits on the committee overseeing ORF’s work, said in an interview published Sunday that the broadcaster needs to do “more objective” reporting. He told the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper that “we’re also going to fire a third of the foreign correspondents if they don’t behave correctly.”

He cited recent ORF coverage of the election in neighbouring Hungary, which he said was “one-sided.”

ORF editors have rejected Steger’s comments, calling them an unprecedented threat to the public broadcaster’s work.

The Freedom Party, which is in a governing coalition with the centre-right Austrian People’s Party, has frequently clashed with journalists whose work it doesn’t agree with.