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The secret history of the 2018 elections in 84 color pages.
I’ll buy it
Six and a half years, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes after the media war in public, the Fidesz vs. At the end of the Index Battle: on November 23, the Indamedia Group, led by Miklós Vaszily, announced that it would buy the shares of Index.hu Zrt. To the Hungarian Development Foundation (MFA), so that in the future the newspaper continues to operate as a member of the Indamedia Group.
With this, one of the largest government-influenced media companies disguised what was known after the events of the last few months, but they tried to deny it one way or another: it pocketed the Index in every way. And at the same time editor-in-chief Pál Szombathy, who had been appointed three months ago, was fired, although this did not have much significance for the whole case.
Miklós Vaszily is the former CEO of MTVA and Echo TV, the current president of TV2, and the manager of the media empire of Lőrinc Mészáros, who secretly spends the former mayor of Felcsút’s money on the media. With 50 percent of the newspaper now owned by him and his company leading the newspaper, pro forma It can also be said that the Index has become part of Orban’s media system.
Although the foundation’s structure lasted only three and a half years, it’s no exaggeration to say that the six-and-a-half-year history came to an end right now on Monday.
Lajos Simicska (and Viktor Orbán) – more precisely Pro-Ráta Holding Zrt. – entered into an option agreement with Zoltán Spéder in the spring of 2014 to buy the publishing house Index.hu Zrt. The Fidesz government then took the first step towards interconnecting the newspaper. (Simicska was still the limitless lord of all of Fidesz’s budget interior at the time.)
But before the choice was made, a grain of sand got into the machine: something broke between Orbán and Simicska, and then the conflict escalated. The Orbán – Simicska war broke out, which also resulted in the government launching a campaign against the banker Zoltán Spéder, owner of the ally Index Simicska. Simicska was still confident that she could successfully take on Orbán, so she exercised her last-minute option to remove the government’s critical card from the government’s arms. In spring 2017, Simicska established the MFA (Hungarian Development Foundation) with the aim of guaranteeing the newspaper’s independence as publisher owner. László Bodolai, the newspaper’s lawyer, became the director of this foundation founded by its owners.
This was more of a gimmick, the foundation was unable to guarantee the independence of the Index, only one streamlined publisher became the foundation’s property, almost only the publisher and the functions necessary to keep the newspaper alive (mainly revenue generating sales) remained in place. the CEMP group. It was bought from Spéder by investors close to the government. The newspaper was in a position of economic and political vulnerability.
The majority ownership of CEMP, later renamed Indamedia, then passed to a KDNP entrepreneur in Kecskemét, József Oltyán, from whom Miklós Vaszily took over the company in spring 2020. In addition, the other owner became Gábor Ziegler, a former director of the company. But it has not been revealed where they got HUF 3 billion from to buy one of the largest online media companies in the country.
Just a few weeks after Vaszily’s arrival, with the support of László Bodolai, president of the MFA board of trustees and former company lawyer, László Bodolai, an attempt was made to dismantle the publishing house, which would have been a silent execution by the independent newsroom. However, Szabolcs Dull, the editor-in-chief, took on the Bodolai family, putting the editorial threat to the public, so Bodolai (who in principle would have been the main guardian of the independence of the editorial board) fired him, which caused the almost complete departure of the editorial team.
The people of power thus accomplished the mission, though not as silently as they had originally planned: smash the Index. Since July, new people have been added to the newspaper, which was taken over by Pál Szombathy, a former board member.
The paper Index has been operating independently of Indamedia ever since, but financially vulnerable to Indamedia, but since the operation was ultimately successful, there was no point in maintaining that appearance any longer. Especially since the newspaper could not operate in a commercially sustainable way under Szombathy, even though it was able to rebuild the staff from scratch and the relationship between the organizer of the ad and the editorial board was no longer as strained as before.
In fact, due to the epidemic, the media market found itself in a difficult position during the summer. But the fact that Szombathy was unfit for the task was also pointed out by Gábor Ziegler in his statement to Kreatív on Monday:
“We did not want to win anything through the foundation (MFA – ed.). We hoped they would gather the points from which the company would operate economically. We did not do that. We could have gone back in summer, we could wait until now. ”
Bodolai has been expressing since 2017 that his person is the guarantor of the independence of the newspaper. However, three months after the editorial board was created, it now transferred the shares of the financially bled publisher to Indamedia.
But no matter what his motivations were, in this game Bodolai was just a piece on the board, as was Pál Szombathy, who had completed three months of record keeping, not to mention his deputy, András Sztankóczy, the four-day CEO. , the advertised and then one day or the former editor-in-chief of orbanviktor.hu, who had left his deputy post after a few weeks of antics.
Many years of political operation have come to an end, which was planned and completed by the decision makers in power. There was no reason to continue playing: the Index merged. So far, no new editor-in-chief has been assigned to the newspaper. According to Indamedia, Ákos Starcz will be the publisher’s CEO.
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