Keyword – reform

Gálik, Mihály – Tömpe, István:

The transformation of newspaper publishing in the second half of the 1980s and during the first year of the regime change

The introduction of the New Economic Mechanism in 1968 hardly affected newspaper publishing. Almost nothing changed compared to the central control typical of a planned economy until the mid-1980s, and the party-state supervision of the press, somewhat relaxed in 1962–63, also remained in effect. As part of the reform movements that emerged in the second half of the 1980s, an ad hoc research group of journalists, media researchers and political scientists wrote a proposal to reform the public sphere, because they believed that the reform of public communication was a precondition for the success of the planned economic and social reforms. The idea clearly influenced the newsrooms of political daily papers, as most journalists working there felt that their own livelihoods also depended on whether the reforms would succeed. Using the example of two stateowned nationwide broadsheets, Magyar Hírlap and Magyar Nemzet, we show what options were available to those involved and how they tried to use them. We also discuss what role the government formed after the free elections played in the privatisation of the latter paper. Finally, we briefly touch on how the political negotiations before the shift to a multi-party system conceived of the general handling of state-owned property.

Keywords: journalists, newspapers, privatization, public, reform