Final Word from Thursday, November 1, 2012
What a fall from grace! Radek John, once Vice Prime Minister and Chair of the Gov- ernmental Committee for Coordinating the Battle against Corruption, will head the investigative-journalism team at Týden magazine. Couldn't they have at least dreamed up a fancier title for the erstwhile anti-corruption czar? How about: Jaromír Soukup's attack dog for digging up dirt on everyone else and preempting assaults on Soukup's burgeoning media empire? Or are we being unfair? Perhaps when John says he plans to print facts about the theft in the country, he means to start with Lesy ČR, where Soukup's media agency helps a state-owned forestry firm spend hun- dreds of millions on nearly worthless advertising. Maybe John will write about how money from government entities is used to cross-subsidize the low rates his new boss charges to commercial clients. Now that would be an exposé worth reading.
Glossary of difficult words
attack dog - a person noted for harsh, personal and usually public verbal attacks against others;
fall from grace - a loss of status, respect or prestige;
erstwhile - former;
dirt - information about someone that could cause damage if made public;
burgeoning - beginning to grow or increase rapidly;
to cross-subsidize - to subsidize a business or activity out of the profits of another business or activity;
exposé - a report about the facts of something, esp. a journalistic report that reveals something scandalous.