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Overview
For decades, journalists in Slovakia thought that the government listening to their phone conversations, tawdry verbal attacks by top politicians, or toxic oligarchs buying their publishing houses were the worst things that could happen to them.
Then in 2018 investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee were brutally murdered.
Journalists bled, but critical investigative reporting survived. Beata Balogová will discuss how independent journalists persevere in an era when significant democratic backsliding is reality, oligarchs keep throwing independent media into their shopping carts, and hate and disinformation sites target them on a daily basis.
Speaker
Beata Balogová is the editor-in-chief of SME, a major daily and news site in Slovakia. An ethnic Hungarian living in Slovakia, Beata also writes columns and commentaries on politics, societal changes, press freedom, populism, and human rights. Prior to joining SME, between 2003 and 2014, Beata served as editor-in-chief of Slovakia’s English-language weekly The Slovak Spectator.
Beata was awarded the European Press Prize in 2020 in the opinion category for her commentary “How we stopped being comrades.” She also is a three-time winner of the Novinárska cena, the Slovak national journalism prize.