Beata Balogová is the editor-in-chief of SME, a major independent daily and news site in Slovakia. Prior to joining SME, between 2003 and 2014, Beata served as editor-in-chief of Slovakia’s English-language weekly The Slovak Spectator. Beata also serves as vice chair of the executive board of the International Press Institute (IPI) advocating media freedom in the Central European region.

Beata became a journalist at the age of eighteen and since then she has been loyal to the profession and mission. She graduated from the School of Journalism of Columbia University in New York and was also a Fulbright scholar appointed to the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri Columbia in 1994. Beata writes columns and commentaries on politics, societal changes, populism and human rights.

Beata won the 2020 European Press Prize – Opinion award for her piece 'How We Stopped Being Comrades'. She is now member of the preparatory committee of the Prize, selecting the best journalistic pieces for the jury. She is the author of a successful fiction book The Kornelias, published in Slovak and translated to several languages.