In 2013, the Czech-Slovak businessman Andrej Babiš decided to widen the scope of his activities by buying the Czech media house, Mafra. He was also pursuing a political career and in 2017 became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Both the purchase and the political ascent of the new owner have contributed to the departure of many journalists from the two national newspapers in the Mafra Group. The journalists left in waves that corresponded to the stages of Babiš's takeover and the gradual tightening of his grip on the newsrooms, and their departure has done fatal damage to the reputation of Mafra newspapers. Through 10 in-depth interviews with some of the journalists who left, this case study charts the disintegration of the newsrooms to assess the decline of journalistic autonomy within the oligarchized media systems of central and eastern Europe. We aim to identify the point at which the erosion of workplace autonomy becomes unacceptable for media professionals and when the situation becomes inconsistent with their professional identities. The findings suggest that the gradual erosion of journalistic autonomy, caused mainly by changes in the organization's culture, led journalists first to accommodate to the changes and later to leave.

2013 年，捷克斯洛伐克商人 Andrej Babiš 决定通过收购捷克媒体公司 Mafra 来扩大其活动范围。他还从事政治生涯，并于 2017 年成为捷克共和国总理。新东家的收购和政治上的提升都导致许多记者从 Mafra 集团的两家全国性报纸离职。记者们的离开与巴比什的接管阶段和他对新闻编辑室的控制逐渐收紧相对应，他们的离开对马夫拉报纸的声誉造成了致命的损害。通过对部分离职记者的10次深度采访，本案例研究描绘了新闻编辑室的解体，以评估中欧和东欧寡头媒体系统中新闻自主权的衰落。我们的目标是确定媒体专业人士无法接受工作场所自主权受到侵蚀以及情况与其专业身份不一致的情况。调查结果表明，主要由组织文化变化引起的新闻自主权逐渐削弱，导致记者首先适应变化，然后离开。