Broadcasting a Nuclear Accident: Chernobyl on the Hungarian Radio

On April 26, 1986 a major nuclear accident occurred in the Soviet Union: Reactor No. 4 of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant exploded and harmful radioactive fall-out effused. The disaster threatened most of the population of Europe who, however, could not access timely and appropriate information about the health risks, as most of the media outlets were under close authoritarian political control in throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Based on an analysis of archival radio news and of political communiques, this paper describes how the Hungarian party leadership managed the communication of this crisis domestically and discusses what information, and when, was aired on Hungarian Radio (HR). Using mixed research methods, the paper reveals the impacts of loosening political control over a Soviet-type media system in the last decade of the 20th century. The paper also provides an insight into daily practices of political and editorial decision making in a communist regime in times of crisis, which is a currently understudied research field.