Hungary

Orbán is described as an extreme right wing populist and the only pro-Putin leader of the European Union who uses his right to veto to defend Russian interests. His party Fidesz had a landslide victory gaining a big majority in Parliament which allowed them to pass laws and regulations without substantive consultation and public participation
 

A pressured media landscape

Prime minister Viktor Orbán, whom Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has deemed a "press freedom predator", has built a media empire in the last 12 years since 2010 whose outlets follow his party’s orders. They are owned by the Kesma Foundation, which consists of around 500 outlets and gets approximately 85% of the state advertising revenue. Independent media maintain major positions in the market, but they are subject to political, economic, and regulatory pressures. 

The chilling effect is very strong, leading to self-censorship among journalists and editors, even though independent journalists are used to being subjects of governmental smear campaigns. The government regularly accuses critical media of disseminating false information and of receiving funding from George Soros, a billionaire of Hungarian and Jewish origin. In addition to this, journalists critical to the government are often harassed online by ruling party supporters. They are attacked by trolls, flooding them with comments with many personal elements, especially to female journalists. 

Representatives of the government do not speak to independent journalists, sometimes they are even forbidden from events. This situation has slightly developed since the elections. 

The main independent actors in the Hungarian media landscape are the RTL Klub television network; the daily Népszava; the weekly HGV; and the news sites 444.hu, 24.hu and Telex.hu. Telex.hu was launched by former Index.hu journalists in 2020 after he government’s takeover of the Index.hu website in the summer of 2020. Setting up Telex.hu has ultimately helped to save what is left of pluralism in Hungary and they became one of the leading independent media outlets in the country, with their main source of income being crowd-funding.

Hungary was one of the few EU-member states where the government arbitrarily monitored independent journalists, businessmen and academics critical to the government by using the Pegasus software. No official investigations were launched to hold those responsible accountable.
 

War propaganda

Russian war propaganda has been very strong in Hungary since the beginning of the war. Orbán did not condemn Putin and the Russian aggression for a very long time. The pro-government media followed the Kremlin’s agenda, covering items like “Ukraine is bombing Russia” and “Ukraine needs to be rid of its nazis”, which was purely based on the official communication of the Kremlin. The country is very divided: many people who only follow the news from state-controlled channels, believe that the war is the fault of NATO and the US, and do not believe that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. While Hungarian civilians and the state helped refugees, people’s feelings towards refugees are really ambivalent, due to the government's strong anti-migration propaganda, running since the 2015 migration crisis.
 

Free Press Unlimited’s work in Hungary 

We provide courses about cross-border journalism, sharing with them Free Press Unlimited’s experience in creating and producing cross border journalistic stories content as well as distribution of this content across the cross-border audience. To develop their skills, Free Press Unlimited also provides mentoring and other types of assistance in content production. 

Photo: Chris Yunker