Ripost.hu is one of Hungary’s bottom of the barrel political tabloids: an online publication that specializes in seedy, politically motivated character assassinations against opponents of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party. Ripost is the publication that took a photograph completely out of context, in order to insinuate that Jobbik leader Gábor is a homosexual and participates in gay orgies. Earlier this spring, Ripost targeted prominent opposition activist Márton Gulyás, publishing photos of what it claimed showed the activist using a gay dating site. This was apparently the paper’s way of doing the ruling party’s dirty work: discrediting and punishing Mr. Gulyás for his prominent role in the mass protests of this past April. This was too much even for one of Ripost’s employees: Ádám Fekő resigned from Ripost following the attack and issued a public apology. He said that he felt compelled “to apologize for every single keystroke” at Ripost. And in fact, digging in one’s personal life, especially on the issue of sexuality, is not generally thought of highly in Hungarian society. It is frowned upon by most Hungarians, regardless of political belief.
An investigative report by the Index news site, released this week, suggests that at least 97% of Ripost’s advertising revenue came directly from the government and from state corporations. Ripost has managed to attract virtually no advertising from private companies. In the first 11 months of 2016, at minimum 97% of Ripost’s advertising revenue–totaling 609 million forints–came from taxpayers. Index suggests that the actual proportion of revenue from taxpayers may actually be closer to 99.2%, because it was only possible to confirm that 5 million forints actually came from the private sector. As for government funds, the largest advertisers include the Prime Minister’s Office, Hungary’s national gaming corporation (Szerencsejáték Zrt.) and MVM Zrt., the state owned power company. Ripost.hu is believed to be a business interest of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s wealthy political adviser, Árpád Habony.
Illustration: Ripost.hu’s logo and slogan
It’s not surprising that private firms are not interested in advertising with the Ripost.hu tabloid. The publication has not conducted independent audits of its readership statistics, so it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the publication’s reach. What the Index report seems to have uncovered is that Ripost.hu does not have much of a stable readership at all. It essentially “buys” clicks and readers, by paying to promote its articles on Facebook–some of which resembles “click bait” content. Around 6.5% of Ripost.hu’s readers actually visit the website directly–this is the percentage of “regular” readers. To put that into context, here at HFP an average of 20% of our daily readers are brought here from social media websites (mainly Facebook and Twitter), while around 80% are regular readers who visit us after they receive an email notification of a new post or who simply type in our URL directly into the browser.
It should raise some eyebrows that the Hungarian government decided to spend hundreds of millions of forints in taxpayers’ money advertising on a news site that initially gave no verifiable information on its readership and general reach. Even more curious is that Ripost charges the Hungarian state significantly more per ad view (between 11 and 15 forints per view) than the private sector (2 to 2.5 forints per view).
One would think that Hungarian taxpayers are getting a rather raw deal, while business interests tied to Prime Minister Orbán’s political adviser are capitalizing very handsomely.
Do you approve, or do you oppose that ? If you do oppose,start ringing your representative’s office. But not just one, but every day ! He/she will not do anything about it until he/she gets tired of it and realize that on the next election may be out of a job. Oh no, do not give me that BS ; ‘that does not work in Hungary’
Bendeguz79:
I am not going to explain to you whether or not this paper approves or opposes what is happening in Hungary and what is happening around this particular issue. Read the article, figure it out yourself–it’s not that hard. Our readers do not need to be spoon fed. Since you suggested with much self-confidence “ringing your representative’s office,” would you kindly explain your understanding of the Hungarian mixed electoral system of party lists and single member constituencies, and how within the context of such a system you would see this working? Do you understand that the Hungarian electoral systems bears almost no resemblance to the American system?
This is just anothe episode of the grand robbery going on in Orbans mafia state.
An orgy of looting and pillaging under the guise of government. I challenge anyone to point to a single significant project without corruption.
Dear Mr. Hungarian Free Press;
In case you are really interested to see Hungary to ever practice Democracy, perhaps you should provide to everybody the address, telephone number and E-address of every representative in the Hungarian Parlament .
That your paper and many of your readers assume that they are involved in some corrupt activities.
Everybody in Hungary has an elected and sworn representative who make all the decisions to support your party’s goal.
Whatever kind or type of electoral system they practice.
May be if you and your group stops puking all the hate, but help the masses to take action under their legal system, some change might come.
Just why do not you, and your so called Hungarian Free Press start doing what you preach, or at least what the goal of the supporters of HFP might be?!
My additional remark to Hungarian Free Press.
Mr. Adam, I do not mean this as an insult of you, but actually I was eager to see what the average readers of your column do think of the posted article.
I think I know by now were you stand.
So, please let them read and respond freely.
Is not that what the HFP suppose to represent ?