After storming to victory in last month’s parliamentary elections, Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar has promised to restore media freedom in the country. He has his work cut out.
Under 16 years under Viktor Orbán’s leadership, Hungary’s independent media has been hollowed out. At the start of the Orbán premiership in 2010, Hungary ranked 23rd in Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. In just over a decade, it had slumped to 92nd.
This clampdown didn’t play out like anything you would see in the movies, with journalists being frog-marched from their desks by police. It was achieved through a much more gradual and underhand reshaping of the very ecosystem in which independent journalists operate.
First came a manipulation of state advertising spend. Instead of being allocated based on audience reach or value for money, the government’s advertising budget increasingly flowed toward friendly outlets, while critical voices were starved…
