RÁDIOŽURNÁL, the main news programme of the public broadcaster Slovak Radio (SRo) is celebrating its 20th anniversary: its first programme was broadcast on March 5, 1990.
SRo said that 20 years ago, after the November 1989 revolution, new opportunities opened up for Slovak journalists. Until then news broadcasts were strictly censored but after the fall of the communist regime, journalists could freely broadcast news about the events across the country.
“For the first time, almost everything was broadcast live from the site of the events. The father of this idea was Michal Berko, the first post-November vice-head of Slovak Radio for news and journalism, who also pushed through the time for broadcasting of Rádiožurnál – noon,” Alexandra Štullerová-Koreňová of the public relations department of SRo told the SITA newswire.
Berko recalled that his models for Rádiožurnál were the big noon news programmes broadcast on Austrian radio and television. “I wanted to make something similar, so that we could have people outside and broadcast live from the news site.”
In only a short time it was proven that noon news was very successful among listeners. “Slovak society was like a sponge then – thankful for every piece of information that was not just the official one. We had thousands of calls and letters daily,” said Ivan Mjartan, the head of Rádiožurnál, speaking about its beginnings.
