Investigation Reveals Extent of Government Interference in Hungarian Public Broadcaster
Drawing on journalist testimonies and audio recordings, a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio liberty has revealed pervasive government interference in Hungary’s public broadcaster. Specific instructions to portray migrants and left-wing politicians in a negative light confirm the findings of research conducted by Get The Trolls Out.
A report by Get The Trolls Out analysed how news was presented on the Origo website in the period leading up to the general election in April 2018
Reporters at Hungary's public broadcaster MTVA faced pressure and specific orders to push an anti-migrant narrative, a key issue for the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
This was in November, after obtaining leaked materials such as audio recordings, internal e-mails, and journalists’ testimonies. The material demonstrates that, especially in the period leading up to the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2018 and the European Parliament elections in 2019, editors at MTVA instructed journalists how to cover certain topics including migrants, LGBTQ+ issues, climate change, as well as opposition parties and candidates.
Guidelines on the media coverage of migration
The RFE/RL investigation showed that, ahead of the national elections in April 2018, reporters at MTVA were given a migrant-story quota of at least one a day, and were told to use a tone that would encourage viewers to form a negative image of migrants.
Instructions were also very specific. One of the reporters told RFE/RL that they had “to start with the most brutal visuals. […] For example, a migrant who stabs, kills, or screams 'Allahu Akbar.' Afterward, you had to tell the story, adding how many million migrants arrived in Europe and that there are millions more on the Balkan route, all of whom will be knocking at Hungary's borders. This was the pattern.”
Reporters were also prohibited from using the word ‘refugee’ in any context. Instead, they had to use ‘migrant’ even to refer to people who were officially granted refugee status.
The government’s stance against the Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros was also reflected in the reporting guidelines of the MTVA editors. Drawing on antisemitic tropes, Soros was frequently depicted as “pulling the strings” of world events, including the migration crisis.
RFE/RL reported that one of the journalists interviewed, who wanted to stay anonymous, said: “There was a time when we were told to find countries where people were protesting against George Soros. […] A film crew went to North Macedonia and Bulgaria and they, in fact, portrayed this huge problem there, and reported that groups had arisen to stop the 'George Soros army’ […] Later, of course, it was revealed that these organizations had been created just a few weeks before and had a few members.”
What Get The Trolls Out has highlighted in the past few years
These findings confirm what Get the Trolls Out has highlighted in the past few years, calling attention to how the tough anti-immigration agenda of the Fidesz-led Hungarian government is reflected in the reporting of public service media.
In 2018, Get The Trolls Out analysed how news was presented on the Origo website in the period leading up to the general election in April 2018, to get an overview of how much was written about migration and refugees – and what form that took. In the two relevant news sections of the website, 2066 articles were published during the whole of March, of which 394 dealt with migration or migrants in some form, corresponding to an average of 12.7 articles a day.
After 9th April, the day after the elections, the daily average of migration-related articles fell to 5.3. The drop was particularly noticeable in the Home News section. This confirmed that the amount of coverage relating to migration outweighed its importance, directly because of the political campaign.
In its monitoring of Hungarian media, Get The Trolls Out has identified a high number of articles and news bulletins that distorted facts in order incite fear and anger against migrants and Muslims. From pieces of news inflating Islamist terrorist messages to “security experts” justifying racially-motivated shootings, Get The Trolls Out has denounced how these stories are strikingly in line with the anti-Muslim and anti-migrant agenda of the government, presenting Hungary as it is described in Viktor Orban’s rhetoric: as the last bastion against the “Islamisation” of Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long stoked fear of immigration and Muslims in particular. In February 2018, ahead of the country’s general election, he gave his annual state of the nation speech, where he warned voters that further immigration would lead to “the decline of Christian culture”.
He said: [The West] “has opened the way for the decline of Christian culture and … Islamic expansion, [while his administration] has prevented the Islamic world from flooding us from the south. We are those who think that Europe’s last hope is Christianity … If hundreds of millions of young people are allowed to move north, there will be enormous pressure on Europe. If all this continues, in the big cities of Europe there will be a Muslim majority.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long stoked fear of immigration and Muslims
Political bias in public service media
The RFE/RL investigation also revealed that reporters at MTVA were ordered to be critical not only of migration, but also left-wing politicians, and to praise the Fidesz’s government actions. For example, it was ordered that media coverage of the covid-19 pandemic had to put in a good light, praising the action of Hungary compared to other countries. Another guideline stated that whenever a left-wing politician was involved in a scandal, the term left-wing had to be mentioned explicitly, while right-wing politicians were not identified in this way.
In the recordings obtained by RFE/RL, Balazs Bende, a senior MTVA editor, can be heard saying to the reporters "I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that it is not the opposition's list that enjoys the support of this institution," and that those who did not want to work under these conditions, were free to resign immediately.
Press Freedom in Hungary
In late 2019 the international organisation Reporters Without Borders, which ranked Hungary 89th out of 180 countries on their World Press Freedom Index, described the level of media control by the government as “unprecedented in an EU member state.” Since Victor Orban’s Fidesz party won the elections in 2010, state media in Hungary have been gradually converted into a government mouthpiece.
According to the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch, “since 2010, in five waves of dismissals, the state broadcaster, closely linked to the government, fired over 1,600 employees, including journalists who were not willing to toe the government line.”
In July, the editor of Index, Hungary’s most-read independent news portal, was dismissed, after his announcement that the portal’s editorial independence was in danger, leading to the resignation of its entire staff. With the recent purchase of Index’ shares by the government-linked Indamedia, Index is now under government control.
The latest blow to press freedom dates back to September, when NMHH, the pro-government state media authority declined to renew the soon-to-expire broadcasting license of Klubradio, the last independent political radio station in the country. NMHH announced that this is due to “repeated infringement” of the law. The infringements that NMHH cited in justification include Klubradio's failure to meet the deadline to inform regulators of the ratio of Hungarian music to foreign music played on the air.
