Juozas Gediminas Baranauskas (30 March 1935 – 2 July 2021) was a Lithuanian

TV anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

and politician who served as member of the

Seimas The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas), or simply the Seimas (), is the unicameral parliament of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendmen ...

Biography

Baranauskas was born in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, Lithuania on 30 March 1935. In 1954 he started his studies at the Faculty of Law within Vilnius University. In his second year of studies, Baranauskas won the competition to become an announcer on the

national radio RNZ National ( mi, Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa Ā-Motu), formerly Radio New Zealand National, and known until 2007 as the National Programme or National Radio, is a publicly funded non-commercial New Zealand English-language radio network operat ...

. In 1957, Baranauskas won the competition to become the first TV announcer on the newly established national TV station. Together with Gražina Bigelytė, he appeared on the very first national broadcast on 30 April 1957. At the time, there were only 32 TV sets in Lithuanian SSR to receive the broadcast, although the number increased to more than 1500 by the end of 1957. Baranauskas worked for the national broadcaster for almost 40 years. Baranauskas was a member of the Communist Party of Lithuania. After the independence, he joined the ranks of the Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania (LDDP) and, in the elections in 1992, was elected as the member of the Sixth Seimas in the single-seat constituency of Akmenė-

Joniškis Joniškis (; Samogitian language, Samogitian: ''Juonėškis'') is a town in northern Lithuania with a population of about 9,900. It is located 39 kilometers north of Šiauliai and 14 kilometers south of the Lithuania–Latvia border. Joniškis i ...

(39). Baranauskas died on 2 July 2021 aged 86.

References

1935 births 2021 deaths Members of the Seimas Politicians from Kaunas Lithuanian television presenters Vilnius University alumni Communist Party of Lithuania politicians Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania politicians {{Lithuania-politician-stub