Jaromír Štětina

Who is Jaromír Štětina?

Jaromír Štětina is Czech journalist, writer and politician. He is most known as war correspondent from conflict areas of former Soviet Union.

Štětina studied University of Economics, Prague. He started to work as journalist in newspaper Mladá Fronta but after Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he was fired because of disagreement with the occupation and worked as geodesist. Later he started to study geology at Charles University in Prague and organized 25 geologic or sport tours to Siberia and Asia. Since 1989 he works in re-established newspaper Lidové noviny. In 1990 he moved as foreign correspondent into Moscow from where he covered numerous conflicts in former Soviet Union. During 1993-94 he was editor-in-chief of Lidové noviny. In 1994, together with journalist Petra Procházková, founded independent journalist agency Epicentrum dedicated to war reporting.

Štětina specialised on military conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa and covered more than 20 of them. He published ten books, dozens of documentary movies and countless articles.

In 2004 elections into the Senate Štětina become independent candidate under umbrella of Green Party and was voted in because of his popularity.