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Draft 3

Journalism was always present in life. It had and still has great influence on the readers, that is why political parties and other organisations have their own newspapers. In 1976 the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP in Hungarian) was in power. The party had its Committees in every county , so in Baranya, too. This committee owned the regional newspaper of that time called Új Dunántúli Napló. I compared the little column for the newspaper’s staff and realised that it was printed in the same press, although the name of the company has changed. In 1976 the publisher was called the Baranya County’s Publishing Company and in 1996 a Hungarian-German joint venture publishes the paper. The editor-in-chief, who had one story in this issue, was Mitzki Ervin, Who fulfilled this duty till 1989. Of the journalists I found two names who worked for Dunántúli Napló and still writes articles for Új Dunántúli Napló. It is to be noted that many authors put down only their initials, so it is hard to define if the persons hid behind the same initials in the two newspapers are the same. With the change of the regime the editor-in-chief was dismissed and Lombosi Jenõ took up his post. From that staff about 20 people still works for the paper, but reducing the number of employees is concomitant of capitalism.

Socialist influence is sensible through the whole newspaper. I tried to observe the clichés and techniques that were used in that era and I will also present three news values in Dunántúli Napló’s December 6,1976 edition. This paper will highlight how the newspaper reported events that were characterised by personalization, facility and negativity.

On the basis of the Monday edition, many events happened in the world at weekend, all of them are very short, only a few-sentence-long. There are longer international news, which are about the Spanish and the Japan Social Parties one is about Marlon Brando, demonstrating against the white men’s treating of Indians, and another reports the death of the actor, Rupert Davis, who acted in the Maigret series.

In Hungary there were two political news worth mentioning according to the newspaper, one is about Kádár János intending to go Wien, and the other is about Gáspár Sándor staying in Warsaw. The edition contained articles about the bigger cities in Transdanubia, like Zalaegerszeg, Baja, Szekszárd. Each informed readers about regional events, constructions or factories. Kampis Péter wrote two interviews about public health. first he talked with the assistant under-secretary of the Ministry of Public Health. Secondly he put down his impressions about heart operation. He was amused by the incredible medical treatments doctors did, and he had some examples from the USA. Besides, after reading the newspaper readers came to know that in Bem street in a shop gold was sold for 3 million forints that year; that the number of crime decreased in Komló, and that Darvas Iván would act in Pécs and he spoke about the character he personified. And at last there’s an article which was written by the present editor-in-chief, Lombosi Jenõ, introducing us Klárika , who suffers from muscular contraction and has no identification card, because she cannot look after herself.

I counted a list concerning the number of the articles about Hungarian and international news and the length of them. I found that these were 18 Hungarian-topic stories without sports news on 5 pages and 15 international news on 1 page. That suggests an impressive picture of the length of international news, namely that most of them are not longer than a few rows.

Not only shortness is a main feature of news reporting in the issue, but also personalization. Many of the articles do not contain the specific place, time, person and the event. While reading them I felt like looking at a magazine for women. If I want to generalise I could find the column in which a person with serious illness tells about his life. The story titled ‘ Klárika él ,de ...’ ( Klárika lives but...) touches the reader deeply , even if Lombosi Jenõ does not contain much news values. The illness of the 20-year-old girl turns out only half of the story , the author used the technique of retardation to raise curiosity and sympathy in the reader. This way people get more enthusiastic or indignant. In the end the reader is not interested in the fate of Klárika, but he is angry with the system and the bureaucratism that rather hinder than help the life of this unlucky girl.

Another way of getting 8 people involved in an issue is writing about famous persons as an example for them. For instance Harmat Endre’s story about Marlon Brando, who sent an Indian girl to the Oscar ceremony to take over the prize. Brando wanted people to realise how badly Indians are treated. To confirm the actor’s opinion Harmat Endre provided statistics of Indians’ average age and historical facts about the government’s politics towards the natives. The personality of Brando influences many readers to take side of the Indians. Setting up a good example, people believe an opinion more easily than talking in general, warning and advising people what to pay attention to.

It is surprising to find printed matter like the one about Klárika in a socialist newspaper, since it criticises the bad provision of the socially disadvantaged people. It contradicts the image of socialism, that ‘Proletarians of the World, Unite!’, which slogan is found on the front page of the newspaper. There is an article mentioning the typical thinking of the previous system, namely ‘the settled and accepted rules of socialist living together’. (Mitzki, E. 1976, p2) The article contains almost no news values, only the repeal of the noise restriction order. The author tells the public opinion about vandals and machines operating too loudly, so disturbing the ones trying to sleep after night shift. The socialist attitude is well-perceptible, it suggests people not to allow to disturb the everyday men’s life. After feeling the feed-back for their complaint, the audience will surely have more confident in the newspaper and higher selling rates will be accomplished.

Tradition was another socialist value, presenting positive events and views on customs fortifies pride in people. They become more faithful citizen of the party which praise them. I read a short story titled ‘Bárány nélkül kereskedõ’(no author, 1976, p3), which had no news values at all. It just helped people to get over difficult points in life, by telling them how great and famous forests we had. It really encourages people to make themselves believe the magnitude of the Hungarian nation. On the second page news about the main cities of the region are to be found. Among these news one deals with the pig market in Pécs (Rné, 1976. p2). It misses the more varied supply of pigs, although the demand was booming. The author worries about the dying out of another tradition. It gives detailed amounts of sold , brought and processed pigs at the abattoir. These facts catch the attention of skilled workers, agricultural workers and of people living in villages, who meant the great mass in 1976.

A more stratified topic is public health. People are always concerned in their health, thus they are curious about the state of hospitals, new operation techniques and about improvements in hospital treatment. Kampis Péter wrote two articles about public health. Facility as news value appear in both, though to different degree. The first one is an interview with Õry Imre, the assistant under-secretary of the Ministry of Public Health(Kampis, P. 1976. p6), as stated in the subheads. He informs us about labour frequency in different strata, sums of money invested in developing equipment and the advance in professional skill. The reader might think that this article does not include many features of facility, for example facts, figures, names or locations. But after the second article he will realise how many times more facts appeared in the interview with Mr Õry. So, the second article I would like to mention has the title ‘ szívet mûtenek’ (Kampis, P. 1976. p3), and the subhead is ‘Csodálatosan precíz és emberi’ (in English: Wonderfully precise and human). It implies that the style of the writing is more human, not so scientific, consequently more people will at least read into. After realising that the topic might concern himself as well, he will read through it thoroughly. In fact, the article is entertaining, since it describes the author’s personal experiences, which is more impressive than reading an interview about the newest operation. What most astonished me was the use of foreign words, loan words, like ‘team’, ‘pacemaker’ or ‘akupuntúra’ (acupuncture in English). I thought that these words invaded Hungary only after 1989, and in some places ‘team’ is not well-accepted, though many people use it. Kampis Péter wrote about the same operation done every day in the USA with more modern equipment and with more money. He also gave statistics about heart-attack: it appears most frequently among doctors and journalists.

If I stick to pure facts the regional news on page 2 offer more occurrence of facility. The numbers of the pig market in Pécs and the information about a factory enlargement in Zalaegerszeg (K.G. 1976. p2) give the reader exact ideas of money, places and numbers. These news are less exciting, but they are more objective, because they cover more figures. In the centrefold appears the most facility and meanwhile the most negativity. Negativity cannot be left out from any newspapers or television news. People are always attentive while speaking about crimes, catastrophes or accidents. In Dunántúli Napló not many of these occur, because socialist leaders did not want people to get worried or afraid. Also the number of crimes was lower than it is now, in 1996. The ‘peaceful, socialist living together ‘ was supported by the newspapers leaving out news full of negativity. But I counted a bit again, and I realised that 7 of the 13 international news deals with negativity. For example, in New York a smuggler group was arrested and violent conflict formed between black Americans and white people. In Rome the number of divorces, armed robberies, murders and kidnappings has increased. From Japan and Spain socialist successes were reported. In the few sentences about Vietnam the USA was presented as an unfriendly, aggressive country, who wants to build military positions to an island just to observe the Arabian-peninsula and the Persian-gulf.

On the other part of the centrefold there is an article about Komló, which was an important industrial city at that time. In the second half of the article facility is characteristic. It tells about the number of crimes decreasing in Komló, although, as it is an industrial, developing city new-comers, skilled workers will arrive in big number. It warns the inhabitants to be careful with strangers, while police will work on protecting people due to the socialist attitude. The title indicates negativity in the printed matter, but only the first part of the story deals with subsequent offender, who moves the reader to pity, instead of making him angry.

During the weekend before Santa Claus’ arrival not many breakthrough events happened in Hungary (maybe to give children time to clean their boots). Journalists tried to fulfil every reader’s requirement and interest, including political, regional news, stories about famous persons and sports news. Ergo to catch people’s attention personalization prevailed. The less of negativity and facility assures the impression of the slow motion of the world. People did not get anxious about anything, it was only an ordinary day in their life. Only children were excited when they were waiting for Santa Claus to bring them presents.