Dalibor Balsinek and his online daily news magazine Echo 24 are perfectly matched.



Alexandre Cabanel's Echo blocking out the 24/7 torrent of online news.

Dalibor Balsinek, the finely sculpted former editor-in-chief of Lidove noviny, has unveiled his new media venture. It is to be called Echo 24.

Some might find the name unpromising for an online news magazine about Czech business and politics. Don't we want our favourite news source to be more than an endless repetition of what someone else last said?

In truth, the name is ideal for a project led by a man so preoccupied with himself (and fine art). It is a name rich in mythological instruction. The story is told in Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses of the loquacious wood nymph Echo, punished by the gods for her 24/7 babbling by being rendered incapable of saying anything of her own but only to repeat the last words of what others have already uttered. As often happens in these cases, Echo falls in love with the wrong man. The object of her desire, Narcissus, is already in love - with his own reflection. And they both waste away.