Lawmakers Blast Backsliding On Media Independence

Michael Hedges July 14, 2022 - Follow on Twitter

Media regulation has never been far from the European Commission’s attention. While digital transition issues have occupied a considerable part of that mind-space, rule makers have returned to certain foundational matters. This past week European Commission vice president for Values and Transparency Vera Jourová and Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders presented their 2022 Rule of Law Report casting a worrying eye toward media rules.

Included is an EU-wide media risk assessment - the Media Pluralism Monitor - that ranks all 27 Member States plus candidate countries. At highest risk are Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. Problematic, to varying degrees, are independence, media ownership rules, election transparency, state advertising, treatment of journalists and media workers and the status of public broadcasting. The European Media Freedom Act, to be published in September, is meant to give Member States a roadmap to shoring up “legal frameworks to safeguard media independence and pluralism.”

At the top of the high risk countries are Poland and Hungary, the two EU Member States facing rule of law sanctions under the Article 7 procedure. The Polish government, said the recommendations, need to “ensure a fair way to decide on operating licences for media,” noted EUObserver (July 14), a reference to attempts at preventing foreign ownership, specifically Discovery acquiring TVN. The EC approved Covid recovery funding for Poland after steps were taken toward judicial reform.

The recommendations specifically addressed “public broadcasting, independence, funding and political pressure in Hungary,” noted Commissioner Jourová. Hungary “must ensure the independence of the media regulatory authority, strengthen the managerial and editorial independence of the public service media, and adopt legislation that ensures the state and state-owned companies fair and transparent distribution of its advertising expenses.” Hungarian authorities were altogether dismissive of the recommendations.

A case in point: Hungarian state broadcaster MTVA recently brought to the Hungarian Constitutional Court a challenge to a lower court ruling that it had “spread lies” by not verifying claims of a xenophobic pro-government group, thus “damaging” the reputation of the Hungarian Association of Migrants (Menedék), reported independent Hungarian news portal Telex (July 7). Revealing its alternative reality, MTVA claimed “it is not their job to check the veracity of what is said at a press conference.” The Young Christians’ Democratic Alliance (YCDA) staged a press event during which it claimed Menedék “was turning Hungary into a country of migrants” and “they were bringing migrants to Hungary.”

Hungarian president Viktor Orban has invested significantly - and effectively - in anti-migrant fears since the middle of the last decade. Xenophobia, then, has become a hallmark of state media broadly, to include the vast control of formerly privately held media by a government controlled “foundation.” Although Mr. Orban relaxed, somewhat, restrictive immigration rules applied to recent Ukrainian refugees, pronouncements from the top over the years are a standard feature of the Hungarian government. In its recent filing to the Constitutional Court, MTVA claimed “checking sources and interviewing other stakeholders in fact equals censorship.” The Court, in its contrasting ruling, held that "exercising the freedom of the press does not in itself extend to the publication of untruths, and in fact one of the main responsibilities of journalists is precisely to verify the authenticity of the news and the information they publish."

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