News Report Category

Twenty-two Czech and eight foreign news reports competed for the finals, and the expert jury chose four Czech entries. All eight of the foreign pieces made the finals automatically.

Finalists

1. Guardian Angels from Afghanistan | Ilie Pintea | Radio Romania | Romania

Every time they go on the field, international counsellor teams from Afghanistan put their lives on the hands of Romanian soldiers, which ensure close protection. Their vigilance
make the difference between life and death, which was proved so far, so this type of missions is called Guardian Angels for a reason. I saw them at work in Kandahar, where Romanian troops ensure protection of the largest NATO military base from Afghanistan.

2. Last Picture from the Gulag | Ľubomír Smatana | Czech Radio | Czech Republic

Zina Žantová (88) never got to know her father. In 1930, when she was eleven months
old, he was taken by the secret police and then in a Soviet gulag. Her father Antonín Vodseďálek was a Czech teacher who taught Czech in Soviet Ukraine. For years Zina has been trying to find out how and where her father died. She found out only recently when the Ukrainian archives opened up to researchers. Russian archives, where there is much more information, remain almost inaccessible.

3. From Forest to Home - History of the Sherwood Homeless Community | Anita Bak | MTVA | Hungary

A young reporter follows the life of a homeless group 7 years long. The group lives near
Budapest in a forest. These homeless people call themselves their living place Sherwood,
for mockery and also for love. This homeless community built quite cozy huts, cottages
and established a liveable in the forest. Some found also work and lived by standards and norms which are accepted in society. There is in the middle of the story a couple: János Csorba and Erika. János is a community activist, takes responsibility for the community,
is a main organizer and leader. After Erika died, he suffers a lot from his loss and has to
experience the collapse of the community. Although he finally gets a social flat, he never can live in. 20 years homeless life has its negative impact… János Csorba dies at age 47. This program was finalist at ABU Prizes 2017 in category Radio News Reporting.

4. Mandalay Bay Hotel after one of the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. history | Jan Kaliba | Czech Radio | Czech Republic

The city of Las Vegas has experienced one of the deadliest mass shootings in history. Today president Donald Trump is about to visit this place. He is going to meet families of the victims and those who helped right on the spot. A commemorative dinner is to be held
at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, the place which the shooter used as base for the shooting. Our reporter has experienced a wide array of feelings from everyone present at the hotel right after the attack.

5. All that Kosmos Agnieszka Czyżewska Jacquemet | Radio Lublin | Poland

"Kosmos" (“Cosmos”) cinema in Lublin was established in 1961 and its innovative modernist mass was considered an example of avant-garde in Polish architecture. For years it had been not the only modern cinema in Eastern Poland, but also a window on the
world showing films from the West. In 2009, the building was abandoned and left to rot.
In 2012, the owner decided to demolish the building and sell the plot. A few years later,
a private company erected yet another dull apartment building here. We will hear workers,
cinema goers, former cinema employees and today's residents of the apartment building.
Each of them demonstrates a different attitude towards the cinema and each of them shows us around their own cosmos. Using actual events and archive materials the feature tells a story of a place and its transformation, where the cinema becomes a symbol of a bygone era.

6. Miracles of Medicine – ARO | Jan Herget | Czech Radio | Czech Republic

Report from the Miracles of Medicine cycle, which depicts the work of physicians at the anaesthesiology department of the Motol University Hospital. The listeners are experiencing the struggle to rescue the life of a patient who fell onto the tracks of a metro.

7. Hi There, Neighbour Roman Nuck | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | Germany

Three countries, three radio stations – single broadcast. Every Sunday, MDR Sachsen –
Das Sachsenradio transmits an international broadcast from three Studios. What are our neighbours complaining, laughing or arguing about right now? That is what interests our
German host and his colleagues Petr Kumpfe in Liberec and Tomasz Sikora in Wrocław. In the show broadcast on 2 July 2017, the topic of the day is holidays and how they differ in Poland and the Czech Republic.

8. Czech Lessons in Sorbian Schools | Benno Bilk | Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk | Germany

The Sorbian radio reporter Benno Bilk sat in on a class in the primary school in Crostwitz
(near Kamenz, Saxony). For some time, Czech teacher Pavel Šlechta has been teaching
the Czech language to Sorbian children there. The Czech state is funding these lessons, and thereby providing support for the small Slav minority in Lusatia. The feature is broadcast in Sorbian on the Sorbian-language radio channel of MDR Sachsen.

9. Temporary Police Station | Tomáš Gerši | RTVS | Slovakia

The problem with drug addicts at the most infamous Slovak block of flats in Bratislava
called Pentagon goes on for several years. The competent authorities have the neighbouring residents at Stavbárska Street to solve the problem already for years. The editor Tomáš Gerši decided to visit the residents of Pentagon. While recording the report, the drug addicts threatened and attacked him as well as the female administrator of the problematic entrances. Things finally started to move after the report was broadcast and we showed our interest in solving the problem. After several years the locals finally achieved a nonstop police guard to be placed there.

10. BAGázs | Bea Kiss | MTVA | Hungary

"All the students of the Adult Educationprogram performed very well, we were praised by the examiners, and collected a lot of good marks. With the exam, two persons completed
their elementary school studies, the others went to upper grades. Congratulations and we thank the volunteer teachers for their work and we thank you for having cheered for them :) We will continue in February" – this message was posted on the website of Bagázs at the beginning of 2017. Several grown-up women with children were back to school, including a grandmother. Owing to the diverse structure of Bagázs, some members of the Roma community of Bag have achieved unparalleled success not only in education but also in the labour market. The first report was made in the winter of 2017, and then the editor met again with the ‘characters’ at the turning-points of their lives on several occasions.

11. Five-a-side Football Phenomenon | Jan Suchan | Czech Radio | Czech Republic

There is just a few sports (and team sports especially), in which Czechs are reigning world champions. Five-a-side football became one of those recently. Somebody might have never heard of this sport and may think it is something new. But Czech tradition of five-a-side football started in the Hanspaulka district at the beginning of the 1970s.

12. Unverified Organisations Force Themselves into Schools | Ľubomíra Goljerová | RTVS | Slovakia

Behind the doors of schools not only the teaching takes place. The schools organize also various events, educational concerts or lectures. But, who is the one giving lectures
to our pupils and students? Do the schools verify these organizations? Or is a lecture not perceived as teaching anymore? Schools in Slovakia do not have consistent rules at hand, they do not know, how to verify the lecturers and thus even self-proclaimed organizations with a questionable background get into classrooms many times. Nobody asked for the rules that should be applied in these cases and therefore the state did not provide them.