Straight Talk

Is he obsessed or just a lover of his profession? Is he hard-hearted or does he just not tolerate lying? Does he get up and go to bed with the news or does he reap the rewards of others' knowledge? How does the best-known and most professionally respected Hungarian television journalist, whom all his interlocutors fear, even if he is currently leading a country as prime minister, work? Talking to him is an honor. Asking him a challenge. Reading the book he wrote is extremely meaningful, but ultimately fun. His vitriolic humor, cutting insight, and unwavering desire for knowledge echo in these pages, which scroll as quickly as his reports on the TV screen from night to night. "Nowadays, it is fashionable to call politics a game of the devil. According to public opinion, it is mostly a gentleman's mischief, a game of the privileged, and a very expensive game at that. They deal the cards to themselves, and mortals on earth do not see the cards. Well, yes, I have been given the opportunity to look into the deck from night to night. What do I see, what do I know, what do politicians say before and after the broadcast, are there any requests, deals? - it would take a long time to describe the questions I have received over the past twenty years. But here you go, here are the cards, spread out, in front of you." Olga Kálmán "She is a prepared, hardworking, honest, passionate, in other words, a real journalist, there are not many of them in this country. What does she say in her book? It is interesting, important whether we agree with her or not. And whether we agree with her or not. And it seems that there is no other case." Péter Esterházy