Hungarian public media supports independence of Polish public media
The Hungarian public media stands by Poland’s independent public media, Dániel Papp, the head of Hungary’s Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA), and Anita Altorjai, the head of public service media service provider Duna Médiaszolgáltató, said in a letter to the leaders of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on Thursday.
In their letter to EBU President Delphine Ernotte-Cunci and Director-General Noel Curran, Papp and Altorjai cited reports of Poland’s public media having become the “prisoners” of the Polish government even despite rulings by the Polish constitutional court.
The public media leaders therefore expressed MTVA and Duna Médiaszolgáltató’s “deep concern” over the “everyday political intervention” against Poland’s independent public media.
They noted that the Central and Eastern European group of the EBU — which includes both Poland’s and Hungary’s public media among its members — marked its 30th anniversary last year, but this was “overshadowed” by the current situation.
The public media leaders said they trusted that joint efforts would steer the actions of the Polish government in connection with the public media within an appropriate constitutional and democratic framework.
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They said the procedure to shut down Polish public media had put it in an uncertain situation and was also harmful to Polish society.
Given the legal irregularities found by Poland’s constitutional court, they said the Hungarian public media was asking the EBU to put the case of the Polish public media on its agenda and express its objection to the treatment of the public media if it finds that the Polish government’s actions go against the EBU’s norms.
They said Hungarian public media respected the decisions of Poland’s legally-elected government, but warned decision-makers against structural and personnel changes that lack democratic debate and consultations with all stakeholders.
They stressed that the process of appointing public media leaders was key to ensuring that the public media is able to operate independently. They also asked the EBU’s leaders to use all the tools at the organisation’s disposal to take steps in the interest of the Polish public media’s independence.
Papp and Altorjai said this was important because the members of the EBU have approved a common creed of fulfilling their responsibilities of educating, informing and entertaining the public under the principles of universality, independence, excellence, diversity, accountability and innovation.
They also asked the leaders of the EBU to draw the attention of its members to the possibility and importance of taking a joint stand and expressing their disagreement in connection with the attack on the independence of the Polish — and thereby European — public media, and condemning the “open political intervention” in the independence of the Polish public media.
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3 Comments
Hungary is the only country with a free press, it is therefore, legitimate for the Hungarian media to support free press in Poland. Poland lost the ability of having a free press once Tusk was elected. Tusk only allows pro socialist, pro EU and pro globalists articles.
In 2023 Reporters Without Borders have ranked Hungary on 72th place globally for press freedom, way behind Poland. Hungary has issues with media freedom in many aspects.
“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom RSF has deemed a press freedom predator, has built a media empire whose outlets follow his party’s orders. Independent media maintain major positions in the market, but they are subject to political, economic, and regulatory pressures.”
https://rsf.org/en/country/hungary
Reporters without Borders is a farce. Hungarian friends who can read and understand the language are adamant in saying that there is free press in Hungary. Now, leftist newspapers went bankrupt, even though, they tried to increase their readership with giveaways. No one was interested buying newspapers containing socialist blurbs.
Foreigners complain that the government buys advertisement in conservative news media. That makes sense because they have the greatest exposure.
Media, both paper and TV are privately owned. The media, like in the US, reflects the owner’s political philosophy, e.g., WAPO owned by Bezos a democrat supporter, that is reflected in the paper, Fox owned by conservative leaning Murdoch, it reflects conservative spin on news.
It is interesting, in the US leftist media is losing both readership and TV viewers. Is it possible that Reporters without Borders will have the gull to say that there is no free press in the US when leftist media goes bankrupt?
The group is nothing but a leftist puppet.