Ján Pallo has been the captain of the Spectator ship since 2007. (source: Ján Pallo)
These days I am the only one on the Spectator team coming to the office every day. The main reason is that I live very close to the building where our offices are located. My short bike ride from my place to work is now different from what it used to be just weeks ago.
Everyone in the streets is wearing a mask and almost everything is closed. At the office, life has changed too: our clients are modest in buying advertising space or our travel guides. Yet, there are some positives to this situation. We have been exploring new ways of working together. We have a little more time for strategic discussions with management, there is less traffic out in the streets and the view from the city centre up to the Kamzík TV tower rising up from the Malé Karpaty hills is much clearer than ever since I can remember.
Five years ago, when the Spectator was celebrating its 20th birthday, I gave a big interview. My main message back in 2015 was: "It's a miracle that such a small country has such a professional English language newspaper."
This year, we planned a special for our readers with everything linked to our 25th anniversary. We had to scratch a lot of original ideas and instead focus on solutions on how to bring all the relevant information to our readers, as the state was not able to swiftly provide the necessary information for those who do not speak Slovak.
Symbolically, this is the best celebration we could have. The Spectator miracle is alive as long as it has enthusiastic employees, loyal clients and readers hungry for information. Never before have we have served as many people as we are serving now, with as many online subscribers as we have now. The revenues from new subscriptions cannot cover all the losses we have suffered in other areas of our business, but each new online subscription is a reason for us to look for ways on how to get through.
During this pandemic, our news is more than just plain facts about measures and COVID-19 numbers. Every day we publish some positive news we discovered in reporting about the coronavirus. At the same time, we decided to open our archives with some articles from the Spectacular Slovakia travel guides, which will gradually be published on our website in the coming weeks and months. You will visit many places through the stories, where our writers share their personal experiences.
Thank you for being part of the Spectator miracle.
Read more from The Slovak Spectator’s 25th anniversary issue:
