At 53 years old, after a long illness, Irena Radovanović has died - a journalist for MIA, one of those who knew Macedonian politics better than the politicians themselves, but who never pushed herself into the front row.

Her career is a cross-section of the entire post-independence Macedonian journalism scene. She started in the weekly Fokus (1991-2001), then at "Vecher" in the domestic politics desk. From 2004 she wrote in Nova Makedonija. Among the other newsrooms where she left her mark are Makedonija denes, the weeklies Denes and Forum, Dnevnik, Radio Free Macedonia. From 2014 she was at MIA - the news-agency desk of Macedonian journalism, correspondent and analyst on domestic politics.

Radovanović was "the quiet chronicler," as her colleagues described her. She wasn't a political star. She wasn't a TV voice. She was what agency work rarely rewards: accurate, disciplined, persistent. Thousands of news stories, analyses, reports and political context pieces shaped Macedonia's contemporary public discourse - but her name rarely became part of the public debates.

That's the paradox of agency journalism. When you're on a TV screen, you have a name. When you write for an agency, your texts are read - but signed with agency initials. Thousands of politicians over the past 25 years have been quoted by Radovanović - but few asked who the face behind those texts was.

When a journalist like Irena leaves, more than one person leaves with her. A type of journalistic work disappears that on the Macedonian media market is becoming rarer and rarer: discipline, accuracy, devotion to the field of daily politics, without scandalisation. In an era when everyone is asked for an opinion, fewer and fewer people deliver facts. Radovanović was among the latter.

Her family and colleagues from MIA, the Association of Journalists, and the newsrooms she passed through, see her off with quiet sorrow. And with a reminder that Macedonian journalism, despite everything, still has real professionals - even when institutions fail to recognise them while they are still here.