Facts at a cutting edge - this is the professional motto of journalist Pál Molnár. From being a teacher, he became a professional journalist at a county paper in 1977, then in 1986 he became a Budapest journalist at Népszava. He also edited programs at TV Hírado for two years, and worked in senior positions at Kossuth Rádo for 11 years. In recent years, he has been active in the online press. He has been around the Hungarian Innovation Association since its foundation, for more than three decades, and in recognition of this and the role he played in spreading the idea of innovation, he recently received the MISZ Media Award.
– We have been hearing for a long time how important innovation is. We roughly understand the term, it means development. Its content is much less, because it does not simply cover the already mentioned development. But then what?
– Innovation is the process from the emergence of an idea to the transfer of profit to the bank. Most of the time we can think of a technical idea. An idea always comes from only one head, but it takes several heads to develop it. The product must be planned in detail, then the production, the quality assurance, and the conditions for reaching the market must be developed. Trade processes must be carried out and finances must be settled. This simplified description also shows that innovation is real teamwork. Excellent representatives of several professions must work with one goal. An engineer, an economist, a market researcher, a marketing specialist, including an advertising specialist, and a banker must cooperate. In innovation, there must be results and performance behind success. Success comes in three parts: positive publicity, celebration and money. Success is also achieved by people who have no achievements behind them. However, innovation is a noble value: useful performance is essential here, i.e. it must be a result that can be measured and demonstrated with concrete data, this is the basis. The money obtained at the end of the innovation process is also indispensable: we can talk about innovation and innovation success only when the profit is created and appears in the bank account. I myself work in cultural innovation, 28 years ago I founded and since then I have been organizing the process of the international literary award, the Bálint Balassi memorial sword. This is the first Hungarian literary prize that has reached all five continents, so far 53 writers - poets, translators - from more than 20 countries have received it. Thanks to the Balassi sword, the poems of Bálint Balassi, who died 430 years ago, have now been translated into Arabic for the first time. All of this clearly shows the signs of innovation, but at the same time, profit that can be expressed in money is missing here. In terms of culture, this is not surprising: tickets for the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth are sold 6 years in advance, despite this, huge public funds are always needed to organize it. Even with this, I consider the creation and continuous improvement of the Balassi sword to be a cultural innovation.
– That would be fine, but it is not quite understandable why a journalist who worked on political programs stayed in a field not understood by everyone?
– I was a journalist myself when we were talking about national economy instead of national economy. The innovative movement took place in the companies of that time. I wrote a lot about this because good people were rushing through the process, and it was also risk-free to write about it: it was a free topic in the party-controlled press at the time. Innovation is more complicated than the innovative movement, but the way of thinking is similar in the latter. I myself had already been in contact with János Pakucs, the public figure who established the Hungarian Innovation Association, when he was the chief accountant of the Oil Plan. Thus, when MISZ was founded, I was immediately involved, and as a journalist I saw and presented its recovery. MISZ has become a large national institution from a civil organization in the past three decades. They are good people as well, with engineers and economists with constructive intentions, it is good to be in contact with them and to work together. It is also good that the results are visible and tangible year after year.
- Of course, a journalist does not work for prizes, but because he considers it important to report something. At the same time, receiving any award is an honor and an incentive.
– It is important for the journalist to receive feedback on his work. Sometimes this manifests itself in threats, other times – sometimes at the same time as the former – it gives an experience in the form of pats on the back. I myself value the Media Award of the Hungarian Innovation Association as a significant national institution as a prestigious journalistic award, and personally it is also important because it was given to me by people who know me, know what I create, so they not only have indirect information about me. Allegedly, the board awarded me the award by unanimous vote, although this is not important in a democracy, but it is a special pleasure. In the deadly competition that takes place in the world economy, innovation is a special resource. They know this elsewhere, there are quite a few states - in the West and in the Far East - in which innovation is more effective than here. Currently…! I can also say: for now! Because yes, we must consider the talent of the Hungarian youth - the national talent wealth - and the creativity of our young people as a great economic resource, we must open the door wide for their creativity, and we must even pinch them so that they can live out their passions in this. It is impressive when each high school student explains the details of their application: we are amazed to see how high-level science is in the minds of excellent teenagers. We need many such teenage Hungarians, and the press can probably and I hope help a lot in this regard.
Author: György Tóth Jr
Cover photo: Budapest, May 9, 2024.
Journalist Pál Molnár (j) receives the Media Award of the Hungarian Innovation Association from Gábor Szabó, president of the Hungarian Innovation Association (b), with János Pakucs, honorary president of the association, at the 35th public meeting of the Hungarian Innovation Association in Budapest , at Eötvös Loránd University on May 9, 2024.
MTI/Tamás Purger
