Petr Bělík – Former TV journalist turned game designer – Part 1
Viewers of commercial broadcaster TV Nova probably couldn’t pick Petr Bělík out in a crowd but many will remember moments from his many reports. As a journalist in the late 1990s, Petr investigated countless cases of injustice almost every week on the programme Občanské judo (Citizen’s Judo) and later took the plunge in the highly-popular and creative show Víkend, where he reported on everything from digging for coal with miners to training with URNA, the Czech rapid response force.
“I had about two years experience when I was offered a job at TV Nova. At the time the show was trying to be more hard-hitting and undergoing certain changes and I was the show’s first male reporter; until then all the journalists had been women. Eventually the show became more aggressive in its approach, although it was still fairly soft by today’s standards. We focussed on a lot of peoples’ problems and for me, as a journalist, it was invaluable.”
The weekly programme taught Petr Bělík to cover many different subjects. Full disclosure: Back in the 90s I had the privilege of working with Petr personally and he always knew his material to a T; he could rattle off details any time of day on a TV shoot. Knowing the details through-and-through was an absolute necessity; the reporter explains:
“In Občanské judo you couldn’t head back to the studio after filming and insinuate who the bad guy was, that had to be clear. You had to have cornered that person on camera, and been able to catch them by their words. You’d study all the background and the legal details in advance, but when you confronted suspects you had to be able to best them in an argument. That’s not easy to do and consequently I became something of a ‘visiting’ lawyer on TV.”
As a reporter, Petr Bělík covered stories that included everything from fraud to property theft and family disputes. He focussed on social problems and institutional shortcomings that saw many who had been wronged fall through the cracks. One of the most intense shoots he experienced was exposing the sale of the illegal drug pervetin (the Czech version of methamphetamine) at an infamous Prague pub. Accidently revealed, the reporter and camera crew had to quickly hoof it out of the area as dealers and others moved in. The reporter again:
Petr is quick to point out that he only got in over his head with the wrong people on a few occasions but that it was always a sobering experience. One such moment was when he investigated a debt collection agency tied to organised crime.
“You don’t want to be a cry baby and run straight to the police just because you get a phone call. But it is disturbing. When you begin researching the story you don’t realise you might be stepping into something bigger, that you may be cutting off someone’s source of income, and that you don’t really know how far some people are willing to go.”
Eventually Petr Bělík had had enough: covering stories for Občanské judo after several years reached a tipping point and he realised he had become cynical; not about the show but about some of the insurmountable problems some of the people faced. Change came in 2004 at Nova when he began working for one of the commercial broadcaster’s most entertaining programmes, Víkend. That made all the difference.
“Víkend was something extraordinary for me. It allowed me to really do what I wanted as a reporter, which was not only to concentrate on the story but on formal considerations: HOW to tell the story. I was inspired by big-budget movies and you could use some elements to make stories a lot stronger emotionally.”
The show compiles several reports by a team of reporters on one subject –from different angles – each week. Petr Bělík explains:
“The show’s defining feature is (and was) ‘anything goes’. You could suggest an idiom or expression like ‘water falls’ and you would then come up with accompanying ideas. These could include the history of the Prague sewer system, a story about the world’s biggest waterfalls, something about rainfall and so on. Such starting points became characteristic for the show and audiences appreciated it.”
Another important aspect of Víkend was that it would try and tell stories in an interesting fashion. That was another cornerstone.
“We’ve all had a great teacher in the past who knew how to tell a great story whether it was about World War II or the Hussite wars. And we wanted to sort of emulate that. The other founding principle was that we would try and surprise even experts who we consulted. When someone is a specialist they know their field but we wanted to connect different aspects.
Connecting the dots is indeed a strong part of Víkend’s appeal; another was the sheer ingenuity of its reporters, some of whom, like Bělík, were not without a sense of humour but also were willing to put themselves on the line. Asked what his greatest experience on the show was today, he replies, hands-down, his experience with URNA – the country’s rapid-response team. Petr Bělík:
“It was a unique experience: I was allegedly the first reporter allowed to train with the anti-terrorist squad and to get a close look. It was sort of a boyhood dream to train with them, even if the head of the unit dispelled some common misconceptions, for example, that all the team members are the ‘best’. It’s not the case: they are all good or at least average at everything, from handling firearms to other skills, but not necessarily the best. It is similar to being a decathlete: you have to be well-rounded and handle a slew of different things.”
As for the training? It wasn’t so bad, the former reporter insists and there were a few laughs.
“I survived but they had a bit of fun with it. At one point they gave me a hand-held battering ram, which weighs around seven kilos. First, they had me trudge for half a kilometre through the snow with it. Then, on camera, I had to break down a door. I found I couldn’t do it, even on repeated attempts. That was embarrassing. Only later, they told me they had purposely reinforced the door. There was no way to get in.”
Part II of our profile continues on February 23, when you can find out how Petr left TV reporting behind and became involved in game development and design. Last year his first design, the highly-respected Mafia City, saw its international release at the world’s biggest board games fair in neighbouring Germany. Find out all about in two week’s time.
