The contentious video footage, which was first released on the Index.hr portal earlier on Saturday, was carried by the HTV Dnevnik and Post Scriptum broadcasts.
The HRT management and the chief editor of the HTV news programme today agreed that several professional omissions were done in those reports.
They also concluded that the information was carried in an uncritical fashion, the report was unprofessionally prepared and later presented in a sensationalist style, the HRT said in a press release.
The news was carried without the context, in an uncritical fashion, its source and contents were not additionally checked, and the news did not have all necessary elements to be reliable, although this is required by the HRT code of ethics.
Saturday's Dnevnik anchorman, Danko Druzijanic, and editor Goran Rotim were criticised for failing to cooperate with the HTV news programme chief editor and other senior editors, and for failing to inform the HRT and HTV leadership of the report.
The HRT leadership believes that all public persons, particularly office-holders, are responsible for their statements as well as that media are obliged to inform the public of them. In that job, fundamental rules of the profession and legal regulations must be respected and sensationalism and partiality must be avoided, the statement reads.
The HRT leadership always supports independence of journalists, editors and broadcast hosts and it will do the same in the future with the conviction that freedom and independence of media are an important element of a democracy. At the same time, it will continue to insist that freedom and independence be practised with full responsibility and professionalism, the statement reads.
That's why the HRT leadership decides to ask the HRT commission of ethics to give its opinion on the professional conduct of editors of the said Dnevnik and Post Scriptum broadcasts.
During the procedure for establishing their possible accountability, anchorman Druzijanic and editor Rotim will not host and edit Dnevnik at the proposal by the HTV news programme chief editor .