BUDAPEST – Hungary’s most widely read news site fell into disarray this week after the organization’s editor-in-chief was fired and dozens of journalists resigned in protest as the government moved closer to almost complete control over the media landscape of the country.
A decade in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s quest to transform Hungary into a “non-liberal” nation, where he controls almost all of the state’s levers and uses them to maintain his grip on power, acquiring Index’s advertising unit. hu by an Orban ally was part of a broader effort to limit dissenting voices and silence critics.
The possible loss of the news site as a check on the government was a particularly painful blow to the small but determined clique of independent journalists who remained working in the country.
The site was one of many independent media outlets in Central Europe that have come under sustained financial and political pressure from governments bent on controlling public discourse.
More than half of Index’s staff, about 70 employees, announced their resignation on Friday after the dismissal of the editor, Szabolcs Dull.
“We have emphasized for years that we have two requirements for Index to continue to operate independently: that there be no outside interference in Index’s content or in the composition or structure of Index’s staff,” the group said in a statement. “The dismissal of Szabolcs Dull violated the last of these requirements. His dismissal was a clear interference in the composition of the staff. “
The steady decline in independent media is part of the slide toward autocratic rule in Hungary and, to a lesser extent, in Poland. Those concerns were key points in the debate over the European Union’s $ 857 billion pandemic recovery plan and whether Hungary and Poland should be financially penalized.
In the end, the recovery money was not linked significantly to the behavior of the member states, appeasing Poland and Hungary, and establishing a possible showdown as the deal passes to the European Parliament for final approval.
Earlier this month, Polish President Andrzej Duda narrowly won reelection after a bitter campaign in which the media was a frequent target.
Duda accused Germany of trying to influence the outcome through media owned by German companies. The government has even called on Germany’s charge d’affaires to complain about the matter, and has yet to approve Germany’s incoming ambassador.
After the elections, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, promised to go ahead with plans to limit media ownership by foreign companies.
“The media in Poland should be Polish,” declared the party leader after the victory.
Since coming to power in 2015, Law and Justice has transformed state television into a propaganda arm of the government, has put financial pressure on the Polish media by preventing all state-related entities from advertising with critical media, and has launched aggressive campaigns against critical government journalists.
Poland fell to 62nd place out of 180 countries ranked in the World Press Freedom Index in 2020, dropping from 18th in 2015.
The election results are being questioned in the country’s Supreme Court, with one of the accusations that the Law and Justice party’s control over state television created an unfair playing field.
The Polish government has often followed the path set by Mr. Orban, who has transformed the media landscape in Hungary despite pressure from the European Union to change course.
When Mr. Orban returned to power in 2010, he and his allies immediately set to work to review the country’s democratic framework. A landslide victory at the polls in 2010 allowed them to unilaterally rewrite Hungary’s constitution and change its electoral laws to favor their party. Since then, constitutional supermajorities have been secured in two subsequent elections, despite receiving less than 50 percent of the popular vote.
The Constitutional Court has been crowded and the lower courts have been overhauled, the country’s public and most private media have been brought under the control of the prime minister’s allies, and independent oversight institutions have been stripped of influence.
In late 2018, hundreds of nominally independent media outlets controlled by the prime minister’s allies were turned over to another foundation controlled by Orban’s confidants. Media and competition regulators were unable to analyze the transactions, according to a decree issued by Mr. Orban in early December 2018, because the ownership changes were in “strategic national interest.”
Index, which has its roots in the advent of Internet news in Hungary, has withstood many political storms in the past decade.
He has critically reported on Mr. Orban’s government, highlighting stories of Russian meddling in Hungary, an alleged graft involving politicians and individuals close to Mr. Orban’s inner circle, and recounting other widely condemned government policies as assaults on democratic institutions.
In March, as Europe struggled to contain the coronavirus, Miklos Vaszily, a media executive with close ties to Orban’s allies, acquired 50 percent of Index’s advertising business.
The move raised concerns among journalists and advocates of the free press, particularly about Mr. Vaszily’s role in reviewing the media, including Origo, a site that was once considered one of the independent news organizations. most reputable in Hungary.
On June 21, local media reports indicated that Index’s leadership planned to review website staff, essentially turning reporters into outside contributors. Staff stated that the plan threatened their independence, warning of a concerted attempt to expose the publication to further political interference. Within days, the editor-in-chief was removed from the company’s board, its chief executive officer resigned, as did an incoming CEO.
The matter remained stalled until Wednesday, when Mr. Dull, the editor-in-chief, was fired by Laszlo Bodolai, head of the foundation that owns the publication. Bodolai accused Dull of failing to calm Index’s internal anxiety, jeopardizing the business.
In a statement released after his departure, Dull said he always acted with the interests of his staff in mind.
“It is no coincidence that Index staff felt at risk,” he wrote, adding that recent events have convinced him that Hungary needs a newspaper where the content is not decided by “outside powers.”
A final attempt by news media staff failed to convince the organization’s management to rehire the fired editor-in-chief.
“We don’t know what’s going on,” Veronika Munk, deputy chief director, said Thursday afternoon. “I firmly believe that for many of the staff the work has ended at Index.”
Through an unexpected amount of state advertising contracts, which often promote conspiracy theories and attacks against the European Union, media entities under the control of Orban’s allies have flourished. They have been instrumental in enacting extensive state-funded propaganda campaigns that take advantage of anti-Semitic tropes reminiscent of the interwar period.
“Imagine that all the media in one state in the United States would be owned by a single political group,” says Gabor Polyak of Mertek Media Monitor, a group of media experts, “and all of these media are funded with taxpayer money. “
In 2018, the European Parliament voted flatly to initiate proceedings against the Orban government for what critics say are systemic threats to Hungary’s rule of law and democracy. The process could strip Mr Orban of his vote in the European Council.
In the debate, Mr. Orban rejected criticism of his administration in Hungary.
“We would never resort to silencing those who disagree with us,” said the prime minister.
