Lack of press freedom crucial to Orbán’s victory

Jeppe Bjerre Trans is a Danish journalism student, finishing off his Bachelor degree at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in June. He was in Hungary in the beginning of April to report on the elections in the country, as part of his studies at the International Europe in the World program – a journalism program focusing on European politics. We are very pleased to feature his in-depth report in the Hungarian Free Press.

Jeppe Bjerre Trans. Photo by Morten Fauerby/ Montgomery.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán once again won the recent Hungarian elections by a landslide. This might not have happened if it wasn’t for his powerful media-owner friends, whose news outlets have printed uncritical government propaganda to support his victory, according to Hungarian media experts.

“Another dark day for media freedom in Hungary”.

This is how Hungarian economist and media expert Ágnes Urbán describes 10th of April this year. That day, the owner of Magyar Nemzet, the biggest opposition newspaper in Hungary, announced the closure of the media outlet.

The closure came as a shock for a lot people in Hungary, happening only days after the parliamentary elections in the country where the sitting prime minister Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz won a landslide victory.

Already before the elections and the closure of Magyar Nemzet, international and domestic observers had expressed concerns over the state of freedom of press in Hungary – and the closure of the government critical newspaper is just the latest in a serious of events where it might appear like the first and the fourth state power – the government and the press – doesn’t have the separation a free, democratic society demands.

This causes lots of worries in the country, since Viktor Orbán’s massive victory at the elections happened due to an extremely government friendly press coverage, according to Agnes Urban.

“The media coverage – which primarily was government friendly propaganda – was absolutely crucial for the result of the election. It was the one thing that generated this huge majority for the government,” Mrs. Urbán says.

The lack of press freedom in Hungary is one of the key explanations for prime minister Viktor Orban’s recent success at the Hungarian elections. Several sides criticize the Hungarian press for being non-critical of Orban and his cabinet. Photo: flickr.com.

Her view is backed up by the Hungarian Press Union’s Executive co-chairman, László M. Lengyel.

“The Hungarian Press Union and I personally, am worried about the current situation. That is more than natural,” Mr. Lengyel says.

“The question is: does real, authentic and relevant information reach the public? The answer is definitely no. The government’s and the ruling party’s messages dominate the media contents. The biggest part of the society is in this way deprived of the information which it can make rational and expedient decisions on.”

Both László M. Lengyel and Ágnes Urbán are very worried about the current media development, happening after the recent elections, where not only Magyar Nemzet, but also the government critical online news portal , have shut down.

“There is no good news about the freedom of press in Hungary right now. It’s hard to imagine that the situation can be much worse than it is now – but I’m afraid we haven’t seen the worst yet,” Ágnes Urbán says.

Orbán’s friends in charge of media

The reason why most media in Hungary are keen to keep Viktor Orbán in power, is according to Agnes Urban, that most of the domestic media is owned by rich tycoons with strong connections to Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party.

“The problem is that the media market is extremely concentrated. There is only a few media owners and they are all friends with the prime minister”, says the media expert.

This media ownership structure causes a democratic problem, because the owners interfere with the editorial line of the newspapers and makes them publish content that supports the ruling government, explains Urban.

“The recent election campaign in the media was not balanced at all. Media in Hungary was practically only doing government propaganda messages because most of the media are owned by pro-government Hungarian investors”, Mrs. Urbán says.

She mentions the second largest commercial tv-channel in Hungary, TV2, as an example of a TV-media, that have been very uncritical towards the ruling government.

“TV2 is owned by an investor named Andy Vajna – who has very close ties to the government and the Fidesz party. This means that their news coverage of the elections has been heavily biased towards the government”, Urban says.

Hungarian TV2 has refused to give a comment on the editorial line of their coverage of the recent election.

Controlling regional media

According to Ágnes Urbán, the biased media coverage of the elections in favor of the government was especially clear in the rural parts of Hungary, where Fidesz and Viktor Orbán is extremely popular – like Euroviews previously has described in this This might have a connection with the fact that all of the regional newspapers in Hungary is owned by friends of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, according to Mrs. Urbán.

“All of the regional newspapers are owned by pro-government investors which means that the government has a high influence in the rural areas. A lot of people here don’t have a high general news usage, which means that these people are easy to influence,” the media expert says.

Furthermore, the national so-called public service media have been very supportive of the government, according to Urban.

Magyar Nemzet opposing

Magyar Nemzet was closed by the owner Lajos Simicska – apparently because of poor economy. According to Ágnes Urbán, Lajos Simicska was previously one of Viktor Orbán’s close allies and therefore the Magyar Nemzet was until recently a newspaper supporting the government.

This changed after a disagreement between the two former allies.

“Simicska had a conflict with Orban three years ago and this conflict changed the editorial line of the Magyar Nemzet in the last three years. So it became a government critical newspaper”, Mrs. Urbán explains.

Magyar Nemzet kept on being critical towards the government all through the election campaign, but after Viktor Orbán’s landslide victory at the elections, Mr. Simicska had no other choice than to close it, according to Mrs. Urbán.

Magyar Nemzet was not big enough or strong enough and it was unable to survive on just commercial grants from its owner. It just generated losses for Mr. Simicksa and he financed the losses in the last three years – but in the end he the made a rational business decision, which was to close it. After this election it simply made no sense to finance Magyar Nemzet anymore,” Ágnes Urbán explains.

Fidesz may change media laws

The closure of Magyar Nemzet is only the latest of closures of government critical newspapers. The biggest opposition newspaper, Népszabadság, after being bought by a new owner, who is known to be a supporter of Viktor Orbán and Fidesz.

The lack of press freedom in Hungary has also sparked criticism from the outside world – for example by Freedom House who states that the freedom of press in Hungary is only “partly free”. Also, a report from the Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom made for the European Union expresses concern over the media situation in Hungary.

“The Hungarian media environment poses high risks to media pluralism. (…) Media pluralism is declining due to government influence over the market”, the report concludes.

According to Ágnes Urbán, the people who worry about the media situation in Hungary might not have seen the worst yet. This is seen in the light of the results of the recent elections where Viktor Orbán with his super majority can change the media laws in Hungary, harming the media pluralism even more.

“It is for example possible to increase the tax rate for media companies in Hungary. If this tax will be increased most of the independent media – which is already struggling now – will be closed. And there are several other possibilities to somehow kill the independent media. My imagination is not good enough to picture what the government could do in this sense,” Mrs. Urbán says.

It has not been possible to get a comment from the Hungarian government for this article.

USA interfering

Also the United States of America is worried about the situation in Hungary, according to . This has made the country launch a journalist program worth 700.000 US dollars to help training journalists to be more critical and independent.

“There are still independent and opposition media outlets here that are able to practice journalism with broad editorial freedom,” Chargé d’Affaires from the US Embassy in Hungary David Kostelancik said at a journalism conference, according to Reuters.

“However, their numbers are dwindling, and they face challenges in the advertising market that the pro-government outlets do not. They face pressure and intimidation… as a result, fewer and fewer Hungarians are exposed to the robust debate and discussion that is so important – in fact fundamental – to a representative democracy,” the Chargé d’Affaires added, according to Reuters.

EU-sanctions may be needed

Due to the many problems connected with press freedom in Hungary, Ágnes Urbán is looking towards the the EU and its member states to try and find a solution for the suffering media pluralism.

“If the European Union can put any pressure on the Hungarian government it might help. The role of Germany is very important in this sense because most of the investors in Hungary are from Germany,” the professor says and continues:

“I’m not too optimistic about this pressure actually happening”.

On the EU Commission’s , it is expressed how important a value, free and independent media is for the Union.

However, the EU Commission is hesitant to interfere with the media landscape in its member states.

“Media freedom, pluralism, and the protection of journalists are at the very base of a free and democratic society. The Commission stands for these values and is supporting them strongly. However, this is the responsibility of Member States to protect media freedom and pluralism within their respective country”, says EU Commission spokesperson Nathalie Vandystadt and continues:

“The Commission supports media freedom and pluralism within the scope of its competences – which are limited – and through different initiatives. While media freedom and pluralism are enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Charter applies to Member States only when they are implementing EU law.”

László M. Lengyel is also skeptical about the interference of EU in the press situation in Hungary.

“The EU must mind, that the Hungarian people voted for this government. This government and ruling party is popular in Hungary and the EU must be more modest,” he says.

Mr. Lengyel though agrees with Agnes Urban in the severity and complexity in finding a solution for the diminishing press freedom in Hungary.

“A solution would be to change the government, the opposition, the whole political elite, to unite the journalist profession with its classic ethics, to give the society the right and possibility to decide its own fate, and to give the proper information for it through an independent, professional, authentic, institutional media system. But this is impossible in Hungary under the current political, social, professional and other circumstances,” he says.

Jeppe Bjerre Trans

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