Small Cracks Emerge In State Media Control

Michael Hedges October 28, 2019 - Follow on Twitter

Election campaigns are fought wholesale, entirely though media. Gone are the days of retail politics, when candidates would go door to door, figuratively if not literally. Now, election campaigns use every media platform available for messaging and advocacy; sometimes positive, often negative. And it can be nasty and relentless.

Results of recent municipal elections in Hungary (October 13) have been widely seen as a set-back, of some scale, for the right-wing xenophobic Fidesz political party of prime minister Viktor Orban. Pro-European, center-left candidate Gergely Karacsony became mayor of Budapest, Hungary’s capital and largest city. Fidesz supporters lost control of the Budapest city council. Media watchers wondered how the vaunted Fidesz media machine failed to deliver.

“This year's municipal election campaign has seen more sexual scandals and slander than we have seen so far,” noted news portal index.hu (October 22). Mudslinging may have moved voters more than the old railings about immigration and George Soros. A Fidesz mayor in Gyor was captured in flagrante delecto on a yacht. The video went viral. He was reelected. Earlier in the year, Fidesz candidates won handily in European Parliament elections. Opposition parties, thereafter, coalesced as the Democratic Coalition.

Following the municipal elections, the candidate winning one of the Budapest district mayoral positions, Imre Laszlo, filed a defamation lawsuit against ardently pro-government television channel TV2 and news portal Origo, specifically aimed at TV2 news director and news anchor Vivien Kökény-Szalai. In the week before the voting TV2 broadcast an “interview” with an anonymous person, voice disguised, claiming a sexual assault. Origo repeatedly streamed the item, which was fact-checked by RTL News. “It didn’t happen.” Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, a district court opened a criminal investigation. “It is time for punishment of the lawless, soulless enforcers of the Fidesz propaganda machine,” said a Democratic Coalition statement, quoted by state news agency MTI (October 22).

Fidesz party loyalists and individuals close to PM Orban moved expeditiously to consolidate media messaging. Television channels, radio networks and many local newspapers regularly carry coordinated party dispatches and all receive generous government subsidies. Earlier this year owners of more than 450 media outlets “donated” their assets to form the Fidesz-friendly Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA). Independent RTL Klub and RTL News, owned by RTL Group, have successfully held-off government sanctions. Unsurprisingly, robust independent online news portals, largely based in Budapest, have survived.

After the election campaign Mr. Karacsony suggested he would end a special distribution arrangement between pro-government free sheet Lokal, owned by Modern Media Group, and the Budapest Transit Authority (BKV). “No lies should be spread in the public places of the city,” he said, quoted by media1.hu (October 16). Lokal will certainly not disappear as other public transportation systems are state owned.

The Democratic Coalition and other opposition political parties, in view of electoral successes, have petitioned media regulator NMHH Mediatanacs (Media Council) for representation in Public Service Foundation board, which administers state radio and television, reported media1.hu (October 26). “The opposition groups unanimously call on the government parties to make a change… in order to ensure that opposition candidates are seated in the board,” said the joint statement. Currently all NMHH board members are Fidesz-sponsored as are all Public Service Foundation board members. The Media Council recently refused a bid by RTL Hungary (RTL Group) to invest in news portal 24.hu but had no problem allowing KESMA to acquire hundreds of outlets.

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• Hot Topics - Elections and Media

• Hot Topics - Media in Hungary

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