The end of the Viktor Orban era offers a historic opportunity for a democratic reset and a new era for media freedom in Hungary after a decade and a half of sustained backsliding.
During 16 years of rule, the Fidesz party of Orban built and then maintained the most sophisticated system of media control ever developed within the EU, while at the same time applying sustained pressure to independent and watchdog media.
Over the years these policies had disastrous effects on press freedom in Hungary, which plummeted to among the lowest on the European continent and cemented the country as the EU’s poster child for media capture and authoritarian backsliding.
For the incoming Tisza government of Peter Magyar, there are indications that reform of this distorted media ecosystem – and the dismantling of the Fidesz propaganda machine that defined it – will be a priority issue. Its two-thirds majority in parliament provides both the mandate and political tools to do so. However, this will require a major legislative overhaul of 2010-2011 laws, the dismantling of Fidesz-era institutions, and the creation of a new legal and regulatory framework that fosters free and independent journalism, in line with EU values.
Even with a constitutional majority, this will be no easy task. Media framework reform is a sensitive issue. If done wrong, it could create political pitfalls and bring EU scrutiny over rule of law. But if handled carefully, Hungary could offer a timely example of democratic revitalisation for both Europe and the world at a time of global media freedom erosion.
Inevitably, media freedom progress in Hungary will mean a direct confrontation with the system developed by Fidesz over 16 years of rule.
As the International Press Institute (IPI) has long documented, this media empire was constructed through an interlocking combination of regressive media legislation, sustained dominance over public media, the concentration of private outlets under the ownership of political allies, and the distortion of the media market via state advertising.
Through this coordinated exploitation of legal, regulatory and economic powers, it is estimated that Fidesz wielded direct or indirect control over 80 per cent of the media market. This drove a dramatic erosion of media pluralism and the solidification of political control over public discourse in a way not thought possible in an EU member state.
At the same time, the independent media faced hostile takeovers from pro-government business interests, while others have been forced off the airwaves due to discriminatory licensing decisions. Those media that managed to carve out a market position and retain their independence were kept off-kilter by years of smear campaigns, spyware surveillance, abusive lawsuits and investigations from the Sovereignty Protection Office.
Taken together, this represented the most sustained assault on press freedom ever seen within the EU. While the removal of Fidesz from power will mean an end to politically motivated attacks on the press, the system of media capture it created remains in place. A system constructed over more than a decade will not be easy to dismantle.
As the experience in Poland after the election loss of Law and Justice (PiS) has shown, unwinding entrenched media capture and creating a new media ecosystem which fosters pluralistic journalism will be challenging.
To do so, Tisza outlined in its election manifesto a number of policies aimed at addressing state propaganda. The most eye-catching is the immediate suspension of the news programming of the public broadcaster, MTVA, until reforms are carried out to improve its independence and neutrality. In the wake of his election, Magyar doubled down on this pledge during a fiery interview in the MTVA studio, in which he vowed to shut down what he called a “factory of lies” and suspend the “deceitful news service”.
Tisza’s manifesto also committed it to passing new media legislation; ending the public funding of state propaganda; placing a moratorium on state advertising to the media; and investigating Fidesz-era spyware abuses.
While these policies certainly point in the right direction, the details of exactly how they will be carried out and whether they are part of a wider strategy for media reform are, at present, unclear.
While the form that these changes will take and the impact they will have should emerge in the coming months, in other areas positive developments have been clear to see, even before Tisza took power. In Magyar’s three-hour press conference on the day after the election, independent media were permitted to ask questions for the first time in many years. This upended a years-long practice in which independent media were excluded from major events and press conferences held by political authorities.
Elsewhere, early signs have emerged that the Fidesz propaganda machine is already beginning to crack. At the politically captured state news agency MTI, more than 90 journalists signed a letter criticising direct censorship and demanding the restoration of editorial autonomy and impartial reporting. At TV2, the leading private pro-government TV channel, the news director was dismissed and other presenters were taken off air.
These indications from Tisza, both before and after the election, point to a fast-paced and wide-ranging restructuring of the country’s media framework. While this reform agenda will have the backing of the EU, the challenge for Tisza will be how to dismantle this captured system using only legal and democratic means. Maygar’s threat to suspend the public news service will be an early flashpoint here and could define Tisza’s approach moving forward.
To truly restore media freedom in Hungary, the new government will need to go far beyond narrow amendments and cosmetic management changes. Reform of the country’s media framework in a way which safeguards press freedom requires systemic change – one that fixes the flawed media architecture put in place during Fidesz’s 2010-2011 media overhaul. It is from here that so many of the current issues stem.
A first legislative priority for the new Tisza government for media will need to be reform of the current laws regarding public media. In 2010, Fidesz passed Act CLXXXV on Media Services and on Mass Media, which unified the various public service broadcasters and state media entities under one centralised framework, placed under the politicised control of the state-run MTVA. Within this governance and funding system, management and senior editorial positions became deeply politicised and media institutions were deformed into audiovisual state propaganda tools.
Legislation overseeing the public media system needs to be replaced with a modern framework that guarantees independent public media, in line with Article 5 of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). These changes should ensure that national media regulation should be institutionally separated from public media governance, to limit the possibility of integrated institutional capture.
