New Regulator Head Opens Up About Independent Media, Terrifying

Michael Hedges February 22, 2022 - Follow on Twitter

Independence of media regulators is not a particularly controversial concept. After all these public servants are supposed to serve the public while balancing the functions of media operators. With so much at stake - including money - rules making at arms-length from other authorities is not just wise, it is essential. When working properly, this system supports independent media. Needless to say, authoritarians want nothing to do with independence.

András Koltay was appointed as president Hungary’s media regulator National Media and Communications Authority (NMHH) last December. He has been a law professor and served for several years on the Media Council, a separate but related body, and now leads it as well. His predecessor, Mónika Karas, resigned in October with a year remaining on her nine year term to seek “new professional challenges,” a well-known euphemism for getting the boot.

Mr. Koltay is a hard-line warrior in prime minister Viktor Orban’s culture wars, firmly aligned with the right-wing, populist, xenophobic Fidesz political party. He has regularly challenged media independence and freedoms as obsolete concepts with the familiar digressive legal logic used by authoritarians. In an expansive interview with independent Hungarian news portal 24 hu (February 21), to paraphrase an old saying, he removed all doubt.

“Media independence is a myth,” he repeated several times as if to firmly establish this as fact. “Even in the West, there are brave authors who describe the independence of the media as a myth produced by itself,” he offered. “After all, it (media outlets) always work in the interests of the owner and other interest groups, and the journalists are also necessarily biased. There are obviously brave, independent and fair journalists or more fortunate bodies, but the independence of the press cannot be interpreted as a legal category.”

“Hungarian media has been operating strangely since…wild privatization,” he continued. The first privately-owned broadcast outlets were licensed in the mid-1980s and more appeared during the next 15 years, many foreign-owned. “A significant number of journalists played a political role, then became entangled and offended when they received a political response. In any case, there are no people in Hungary today who would expect balanced information from the individual media.”

When asked about Council of Europe recommendations on political independence and media concentration in Hungary, Mr. Koltay was, again, blunt. “Of course, we can never say that the state of the public (media) could not be improved. The point, however, is that the report writers write about the issue of press freedom in the spirit of Western European constitutional textbooks, which does not necessarily coincide with reality there either. For example, fears of editorial independence can only make sense under sterile, laboratory conditions. In legal terms, however, it is a very dubious proposition, as it is always overridden by the freedom of the owner.”

Hungarian authorities and Fidesz party functionaries have fixed that problem of independent ownership. In 2018 Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA) was established and like magic media owners “contributed” their assets. Mr. Koltay deflected a question about media control through KESMA as “not important.” It is the “internet and social media” that matter today. “In modern society, online communication far exceeds the reach of traditional organs. Therefore, the most important question today is how it all shapes the public structure.”

“Media freedom in Hungary should be high on the agenda ahead of the 2022 (Hungarian parliamentary) elections,” said said International Press Institute (IPI) executive chair Khadija Patel opening the groups’ semi-annual meeting held in Budapest last week (February 17-18). “While we could have chosen to meet in many places, the IPI Executive Board members chose to come to Budapest for this year’s meeting due to the global concern about the ongoing challenges facing independent journalism in Hungary.” Ahead of that meeting IPI with Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Hungarian investigative reporting outlet Átlátszó published a report on how Hungarian “capital” is spreading its media message through Slovenia, North Macedonia and other “neighborhood” countries.

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• Hot Topics - Media in Hungary