Vladimír Mečiar

Its journalistic mission has always been to hold power to account.

Sme established its position in Slovakia with the critical reporting it did on the authoritarian drift of Slovakia's first post-independence prime minister, whom we've already heard about, Vladimír Mečiar.

Since then, Sme continues to cover developments in Slovakia through a critical lens.

Given the state of politics and governance in Slovakia today, there's plenty to keep the Sme newsroom busy.

I grew up in the '90s.

That was really wild.

You know, the times of Vladimír Mečiar, I only experienced as a kid, you know, a teenager.

I was 15 years old when the Mečiar government, uh, ended, and that was the time, you know, that we always refer back to like, "Oh, it's almost as bad as Mečiar," or now even like, "Oh, it's worse than it was under Mečiar." And families are divided and so on.