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Draft 3

The local daily paper of Pécs, called 'Dunántúli Napló', was in an almost perfect monopolistic position in the '70s, being the only publication dealing with the city's life and the events taking place there, while reported about the more important happenings of the world as well. It was published by the News Publisher Company of Baranya, edited by Ervin Mitzki and was revised by the local Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party.

What I want to do now is to analyse and write down how could the staff of the daily accomplish their tasks, analysing the paper from the viewpoint of Proximity, Negativity and Eliteness, comparing the presentation and apparent importance of events and affairs, as well as the selected articles' typography. More so, I'd like to examine the position of individualism and opinion in the paper.

My last aim is to examine how well did the paper fulfil its role as a local daily paper, introducing local events and those of a greater range, whether it was a full informational source. Was it an all-in-one package, so the reader was well informed by all means after reading an issue, or s/he had to read other papers as well, to avoid missing news of great importance?

The chosen issue of the daily was the one released on the 22nd of March, in the year 1978.

It's worth mention before detailing the publication that for technical reasons the articles reflect the happenings of the previous day (21st of March), or even older events. These are the following:

In Pécs, a memorial wreathation had been celebrated at the Republic Monument; the students of the secondary school named after Károly Zipernowsky again deserved the red 'wandering flag' of the Communist Youths' Association for their outstanding results on certain fields; a ceremony had been held honouring the veterans of the Labour Movement; on 18th of March the police arrested the suspect of the murder done one day before; on 14th and 15th the Ballet of Sarayevo performed in the town; teachers had been honoured on 21th for their achievements; also, CYA-organizations had been honoured and a miner as well; the first swallow and the first stork arrived to the agglomerate of the city; a new brigade had been sent to Székesfehérvár to help the locals in their time of need.

In the capital, there was a memorial march of young ones; the delegation of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party met with the local leaders of the Socialist Party of Arabic Rebirth in Syria; Willy Brandt, president of the German Socialist Democratic Party arrived to Budapest; Frigyes Puja, Hungarian minister of foreign affairs came back from Bulgaria, where he met Todor Zsivkov; Ezer Weizman, minister of war of Israel ordered a pause-in-firing in South-Lebanon.

Compared to the present issues of the same daily, it contains a surprisingly little amount of news. Indeed, there are very few news dealing with the common citizen, and there are only one or two writings that are of a non-political nature (so, most of the articles are subjective).

Also, there is a tendency of presenting only news coming from particular areas of the globe, and then from a particular point of view. Articles reporting of small local events might be longer than those written about occurrences in the life of the capital, although the latter affected a much greater mass of people than the local happening.

Newspapers' got a tendency to make themselves more interesting, thus selling better, by shocking people. Crime, death, warfare - each one are presented differently in a local daily.

Furthermore, the paper seems to mention only specific kinds of people, their deeds and achievements, but never their personalities or everyday lives. This mirrors specific thoughts and ideals of the society, thus building a set of merits.

These are the news values of Proximity, Negativity and Eliteness. Some of them can be examined in virtually all articles (e.g. Proximity, because all events should take place somewhere), but some of them are connected to a special theme (e.g. Negativity). It's almost impossible to focus on them through pure samples, because their nature, being news values, demands a mixture of them to build an article.

The most essential of them is Proximity, dealing with the effects of spatial distance on importance, value and presentation of the information. Even continent-shaking events can be diminished and shorted into news-in-brief status, while occurrences only important to the nearby citizenship may seize the headlines. All that matters is the relative importance of the event to the locals.

There are clear examples for that manifesting in the paper: On the front page, two articles appeared without a signature (possibly written by the editor himself), dealing with the same event, the 59th anniversary of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The work positioned higher on the page describes the local ceremonies triggered by the date, a wreathation at the Republic Monument, with a photo as an illustration. The title is underlined. The lower article describes how the capital celebrated the feast, it contains no illustration, but the title uses bold font. Although the latter writing is slightly longer, the positioning of the articles and the underlining of the title of the first one (which, by nature, catches the eye) makes clear, which seemed to be more important to the editor. The photo serves this purpose too, by making the scene, thus the event more vivid.

More important events usually occupy a position where they get priority, so are read before anything else. These can be on the front of the daily, or on the upper half of a page - or might manifest as something else that draws importance to the article. One of the best examples of this can be found on page four, where two short news can easily be compared in means of proximity and importance. One of them appears in the lower right corner, reporting about a fire-in-pause in South-Lebanon - and event affecting great masses. The other one is located in the centre of the page, with a bold and italic headline. The article simply tells of the arrival of the first migratory birds to the proximity of Pécs. The two articles occupy almost the same amount of space, but their positioning makes their importance clear.

The next category to be stendahled is Negativity. Generally speaking, this one contains events that can at first sight be called sensations. This category covers all that is connected with damage, loss, injury, death. Being rare and far between in an established society and bringing thrill to the reader, these events are almost always written about. Negativity is very useful to incite and/or control emotions with precalculatable result.

On the middle of the second page, an article deals with a local murder. Although the writing presents the murder as being stem from extreme emotions, the author uses a strictly objective language. Just if as he wanted to distance both himself and the readers from the act. It's worth to be mentioned that only the most involved and guilty parties are named - the two who found the body by the brook 'Konica', were only mentioned in a half sentence and remained anonymous. Not even name of the chief leader of the investigation had been written down. Although the article occupies an important position and has three title lines, it is as short as possible. Just as if the writer was reluctant to deal with the topic any longer than necessary.

Eliteness was always present in the cultures of mankind, although being the pride of the community meant the possession of different merits in each era. Elite is the one who stands out of the mass in one way or another. In other, more accurate words: the elite are those who met the ideals of the society, or occupy important social, monetary, artistic or political positions, so those whom we may look upon. In the Hungary of the late '70s, Eliteness was measured in two ideals, both of them based upon the ruling political/ideological system: the working man and the politician. The former was the hero, who kept the country going, the second one was the ruler, who helped the worker accomplish the task. The two categories were often both present in individuals (thus, the politically conscious worker or the political leader with a background in physical work).

The article on the second page about the veterans of the Labour Movement clearly strengthens the position of this elite, giving respect to the heroes. These men are those of the past; they are not heroes now, but beacons who shedded light on a clear road to be followed.

The working hero of the late '70s is described on the fourth page. A brigade of local workers travelled to Székesfehérvár, to help the natives in their time of need. A high-pressure water pipe broke up in the town, creating an emergency situation. The scheme is simple: the workers went out to help their fellow heroes, and together they will save their compatriots (also workers). The author's aim might was that to express his/her views on the working society as being a great family.

The politician hero appears on the fifth page. He belongs to the world in general, being the channel to greater events. In facts, Frigyes Puja, minister of foreign affairs arrived back to the capital after completing negotiations with the head-of-state of Bulgaria. According to medieval and ancient customs, the only one who travels to far lands and is of great importance is someone whose aim is warfare - in modern terms, winning something for the country and its people. And if s/he returns openly, s/he must be victorious - the beaten one must hide. So, the politician hero must have won something of importance for the Hungarian People's Republic - and his only weapons were politics.

Most often, no sign of individualism or display of opinion can be found in the articles. The reasons for this can be many: The 'Dunántúli Napló' is a daily news paper, has nothing to do with literature, nor take the role of entertaining magazines. There is no need for this from the viewpoint of the average consumer, rather accuracy and an easily readable, non-fancy style is needed.

The second reason for the needlessness of individual taste and colour possibly was their monopoly. As there was no other daily specifically edited for the local citizens and they got most of their funds from the state, they weren't forced to be increasingly interesting.

There is a third reason as well: most news had been broadcast from the capital as ready-made articles, and no one felt the right to alter them. So the staff had to compare their own writings to the given articles, adopting the language of bureaucracy.

No opinions are reflected in the articles; the reason for this might be among those in the former three paragraph, or it might stem from the ideology of communism. If everyone is perfectly equal, then their opinions must be the same too. So there is no need to show up new ideas and individual thoughts - this shows that the author do not think that his/her readers are as clever as s/he is. And that cannot be the point ...

The staff of the 'Dunántúli Napló' succeeded in creating a daily, sufficiently fulfilling its role as a local paper. By mingling articles important from the town's point of view and news reporting of events from a great geographical range, they were able to create an interesting and exciting publication, giving a great overview, but not going into peculiar details. This compensates for the lack of individualism and flavour. 'DN' is a practical publication for the average (working) man, to be easily read before breakfast, and thus acquiring a fast, but comparatively precise knowledge about events in the immediate vicinity and far away. With this, the 'Napló' maintains the illusion of Baranya as being isolated, while connecting it to the world and the country with million threads.