On a whining, static-filled screen, a disembodied voice says: "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission . . . "
For Christopher Winner, a journalist with the English-language Prague Post newspaper, the ongoing fight for control of Czech state television reminds him of the opening sequence of the 1960s science-fiction show The Outer Limits.
"The mesmerising voice and the omniscient `we' reminded Cold War era viewers that television, the most important of modern media, could be subjugated," he says.
Journalists at the Prague headquarters of Czech television (CT) decided on Christmas Eve that editorial impartiality at the station had been subjugated and locked themselves in the newsroom. In the run-up to Christmas, the CT board appointed Mr Jiri Hodac to the position of director general.
Journalists objected to Mr Hodac's appointment, saying he is a lackey for the conservative former prime minister, Mr Vaclav Klaus, a man who has shown little love for independent journalism.
Mr Hodac once applied to be Mr Klaus's spokesman and between them, journalists say, they would slant news coverage in favour of Mr Klaus's rightwing Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in the run-up to next year's election.
But events have moved beyond a strike at a television station. Last Wednesday over 100,000 people gathered to show their support for the striking journalists and to call for an end to political interference in the public media.
The demonstration took place in Prague's central Wenceslas Square, scene of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. A decade after the fall of communism, Czechs have realised that democracy does not guarantee a free and unbiased media.
But the Czech Republic is not the only former Eastern bloc country where independent thinking in media organisations has lead to attack from politicians.
"Only a strong and effective state is capable of protecting civic, political and economic freedoms. Strong government has an interest in having strong opponents, and without a truly free mass media, Russian democracy simply will not survive." Heartening words from the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, last summer just one month after government officers arrested Mr Vladimir Gusinsky, the director of Russia's main independent television station, NTV. On Thursday a Moscow court ruled that charges of defrauding a company of over $473 million using "non-existent assets" have no basis and the case should be closed, but the ruling was overturned in Moscow's appeals court yesterday, reviving the fraud trial.
Mr Gusinsky says the fraud charge has been trumped up as punishment for NTV's frank coverage of the war in Chechnya and the station's failure to endorse Mr Putin in presidential elections.
Given Mr Putin's KGB past and his pledge to strengthen the state, the arrest of Mr Gusinksy bears all the hallmarks of a Soviet-style attack on freedom of the press. Mr Gusinsky (48) fled Russia and is under house arrest in southern Spain while Spanish authorities consider Russia's request to extradite him.
But the fate of the remaining independent media in Russia was sealed with the election of George W. Bush, according to Mr Pavel Felgenhauer of the Moscow Times.
A Republican White House will be more pragmatic and deliver less rhetoric about human rights, he says.
"Older Russian leaders, like Mr Yegveny Primakov, are apparently hoping to relive the good old days of Richard Nixon - the time of realpolitik," wrote Mr Felgenhauer in the Moscow Times.
"The Kremlin believes a deal can be cut with the new Bush administration delineating spheres of interest and stating that inside its own sphere, the Kremlin will be given virtually a free hand to do anything: plunder Chechnya, control the press, falsify election results and so on," he said.
Mr Putin's advisers believe that once Mr Putin continues to pursue pro-capitalist economic policies, the Bush administration will show no interest in his increasingly authoritarian rule and his crackdown on independent media.
The fall of Mr Slobodan Milosevic freed the Serbian media from his authoritarian rule and allowed them to help the Serbian people face the demons of his legacy.
But propagandists and journalists in Serbia are engaged in an ideological tug of war.
The most bitter struggle is taking place inside the national broadcasting company Radio Television Serbia (RTS), by far the most effective propaganda weapon at Mr Milosevic's disposal.
Like most Serbian institutions, the top positions in RTS were filled by Milosevic loyalists. Following Mr Vojislav Kostunica's victory, protesters seized the RTS building and beat up its director.
They assumed the old Milosevic guard would be replaced, but that hasn't happened.
Instead, an uneasy truce has prevailed, with close Milosevic allies now in consultations with Mr Kostunica over power-sharing in the leadership of almost every ministry and institution, including RTS. Many of the independent media owners who were appointed to temporarily head the editorial departments of staterun media have already left, citing a lack of support from employees who supported Mr Milosevic under the old regime.
Ms Gordana Susa was appointed to head the editorial desk at RTS, but says it is practically impossible to work with the staff who worked at RTS under the Milosevic regime.
"I would watch [them] trying to compare news from [independent news agencies] Beta and Fonet and Reuters, and they would suddenly feel confused and tired, they didn't know what the news was," Ms Susa told the online magazine Salon.
Mr Kostunica's government controls decisions about RTS but has yet to make any sweeping changes to RTS personnel.
Rather than being a free news service, Ms Susa and others say that RTS has merely switched loyalties from Mr Milosevic to Mr Kostunica. The crackdown on press freedom is spreading around the former communist states in eastern Europe.
Last Thursday, the smaller party in Hungary's ruling coalition announced a draft law that would demand the right to corrections to opinion pieces that the government felt infringed standards.
The law, said to have the support of the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Orban, would treat opinion pieces, letters to the editor and theatre reviews as factual news articles, which are already subject to heavy restrictions.
"It is unacceptable for the whole government side that certain media organisations discredit people, families and parties without refraining from false accusations or slander," said Mr Jozsef Torgyan, the leader of the Smallholder Party and author of the draft legislation.
The Hungarian media has recently targeted the Smallholder Party on a series of corruption charges and Mr Torgyan has been unable to explain how he came by the money to build a number of luxury mansions for himself and his family.
Since last year, Hungary's public media has been controlled by supervisory bodies that consist solely of government-appointed members, similar to the situation at Czech Television.
The strike at CT is a "moment of truth for press freedom and democracy," says Mr Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists. "The action by CT journalists highlights that in many countries of central and eastern Europe the authorities still fail to recognise that media should be free of all political influence. This is true for all forms of journalism, but must be absolutely the case in the public sector."