Abstract
Czechoslovakia was occupied by the five Warsaw Pact armies over night from 20 to 21 August 1968. This study attempts to map out the role of media and journalist in the following hours and days when Czechoslovak society in its entirety opposed the occupation by the means of passive resistance.
Radio broadcasting played a very important role while it repeatedly aired the news denying governmental approval of the intervention in the first hours after the occupation and carried on broadcasting from occupied radio building and organized and steered the resistance afterwards. Interventionist armies did not manage to halt television broadcasting or print media either.
This study describes how journalist worked in a condition of an occupied country and reveals that, surprisingly, journalists themselves perceived the respective ten days between 21 August-3 September 1968 as a period of full unity and unusual freedom.