Hugo Portisch, Iconic Austrian Journalist, Dies at 94
Austria’s probably most famous journalist Hugo Portisch died on April 1, 2021, at the age of 94. According to a report by the Austrian Broadcasting Company (ORF) on his death, “Portisch became known to the general public in the 1960s as the chief political commentator of the ORF. Like no other, he mastered the art of explaining complicated issues in simple terms and conveying knowledge with a high level of competence, but without a raised index finger.”
On December 18, 2019, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (left) presented the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria to journalist Hugo Portisch. (c) Dragan Tatic, BKA
In 1950 he attended a program for up-and-coming journalists at the Missouri School of Journalism, visiting the news rooms of The New York Times, The Washington Post, St. Louis Star-Times and Cleveland Press. The so-called “J-School” remembered Portisch’s experience at their institution in a Facebook post as follows:
Hugo Portisch and nine other Austrian journalists visited the Missouri School of Journalism as part of a Rockefeller Foundation program to demonstrate “the importance of work in the field of journalism in developing objective news reporting and in encouraging responsible citizenship in democracies,” according to the foundation's 1950 annual report.
After spending one week in Columbia, Missouri, the journalists spent several weeks visiting newspapers in Cleveland, Des Moines, Kansas City, Memphis, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
“At the conclusion of their tour," according to the Rockefeller report, "the group returned to the School of Journalism, where they had an opportunity to discuss their impressions and to consider which of the principles and practices they had observed might be applicable to Austrian newspapers. ... It is hoped that the insight into the functions of the American press gained by this group will serve as a stimulus for the further development of a vigorous, democratic Austrian press.”
He later recalled this time, which instilled a lifelong fascination for the United States, as the most formative one.
From 1953 to 1955, Portisch also worked for the Foreign Ministry's Austrian Information Service in New York (the office publishing this website today). Read more