How and Why Did the Policeman Become a Cop?

– System Change in the Hungarian Police Weekly News

Abstract

For more than forty years, ”Magyar Rendőr” (Hungarian Policeman) was the only police newspaper of the Ministry of Interior of Hungary. After the regime change, the editorial staff embarked on a new era in a new design and a different name. The rigorous title ”Magyar Rendőr”
became the much more popular, modern and consumable ”Zsaru” (Cop), so it was already indicated in the name of the legal successor that from then on something would
be different than it was in the previous system. The newspaper, which until then had been distributed internally and served to provide information to the internal affairs staff, went into commercial circulation. It became a press product accessible to anyone. What did the newspaper transform and were the goals achieved? What were the specific goals? Has the paper really become different in practice? If so, in what? I try to answer these questions by
examining the periodical issues and with the help of interview with former editor in chief of ”Zsaru”.