Something New Under The Sun by Zsolt Balla

That was it, dear readers, 2008, another busy, exciting and remarkable year. The nineteenth since the fall of the iron curtain and the seventeenth in the life of The Budapest Sun. Still, we found plenty of new things under the Sun. As we forecast almost exactly a year ago, the majority of 2008 was defined by a Sunday in the early days of March: the "social referendum" against the health care reform. The referendum did exactly what we argued it would do: it proved to the country, that an opposition irresponsible enough to curb long term development in favor of short term popularity can always be powerful enough to demolish without showing alternatives.

We, however, underestimated the extent to which this unprecedented blunder managed to hurdle development. Not in our wildest dreams have we imagined that a landslide victory of the opposition in a mid-term referendum (that was anything but surprising) will not only harm the couple of regulations it intended to abolish, but will cripple the entire government. We proved naive.

With the splitting up of the two government parties (an unprecedented event followed by another, as this is the first time that the state is run by a minority government in the history of post-cold war Hungary), the country found itself on the brink of early elections, while the former junior coalition member Free Dems' run amok drove the party closer and closer to completely perishing from the political landscape.

Then, when we all thought that the only way was up, came the financial collapse. We've seen the markets plunge, just like everywhere else, and we had to learn the hard way what the frequently cited qualities of the Hungarian market, fragility and openness meant in real life. Talks on possible tax cuts were swiftly eclipsed by fears of bankruptcy and the discussions on the austerity measures needed to stave off escalating troubles.

The state's deal with the IMF, that managed to mitigate the tornado, was also a landmark: an unparalelled answer to a question that has never been asked before. News of recession and announcements of layoffs followed. It's easy to see that we have a steep road ahead, and one of the most optimistic approaches of the future suggests that, at least the market will "clear itself from the unwanted side-effects of the dynamic expansion of the recent years."

Still, after all these paragraphs, we have every reason to stay positive. Problems, of course, exist (some bigger than the other), but hey, that's how life works. That's how democracy works. That's how free markets work.

A common phenomenon in all three is that, from time to time, participants are required to change. Whether a change is an improvement in itself, that's judged only by time. But those, who remain the same will not even be judged. They fade away.

That's why we are set to change too.

The Budapest Sun has been around for quite a while now, and times have changed. When the paper was launched in the early 90s, it was virtually impossible to read news on Hungary in English. Now, be it business, politics or even tabloid junk, news is everywhere. Weeklies are not expected to deliver news anymore.

With the internet being an unavoidable news source, paper based publications gained new functions. They have to deliver depth.

This is what the new Budapest Sun will be all about. Our news shorts will be substituted with news stories, while instead of politics in Hungary we will focus on life in Hungary. And for all this, we have entirely redesigned the paper, as you will shortly see. We have created yet another reason to look forward to 2009.

But before that happens, here is the farewell issue of the old Budapest Sun.

"Whether a change is an improvement in itself, that's judged only by time. But those, who remain the same will not even be judged. They fade away."

Happy Holidays,

Zsolt Balla"

Source: Budapest Sun