International reports on Hungary media freedom ‘biased’?
Hungary’s media and the issue of media freedom have been factually misrepresented by various international organisations and their “biased” and methodologically flawed reports, Hungary’s media authority NMHH said on Friday.
NMHH welcomed in a statement all initiatives to assess Hungarian media freedom but said that professional and methodological concerns had been raised in connection with several such reports and rankings.
A review of various international organisations’ reports since 2011 revealed that the rankings applied questionable methodologies and, in several instances, only a few experts had been interviewed, resulting in poorly founded arguments, while in many cases positive developments were left unmentioned, the NMHH said.
In several instances, the same comments were included in the various annual reports despite the fact that the figures had changed in the meantime, such as in a 2017 report of the EU-supported Media Pluralism Monitor showing 75 percent score for access to media for minorities as against 25 percent in the previous year, the statement said. The 2021 Media Pluralism Monitor called Hungary to account regarding implementation of an EU regulation that was only approved in 2022, it added.
A Freedom House report on media freedom in 2011 stated that the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information would restrict the freedom of information even before the authority was set up, the NMHH said.
It was also questionable whether groups of writers and experts involved in the preparation of reports were sufficiently diverse or balanced, the authority said. In several instances when it came to Media Pluralism Reports the writers were all from a single university department or news desk, while independent experts were not allowed to properly contribute to the final assessment.
Reports by Freedom House about the freedom of the internet were done by a single staff member of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union TASZ, which NMHH said was an organisaiton “hardly known for its unbiased criticism” of the government. Reporters Without Borders did not even offer any information about the writers of the reports, it added.
The NMHH report available on the organisation’s website lists further examples.
“The authority trusts that with its constructive critiscism, it will contribute to more professionally well-founded and balanced reports, better reflecting reality, to be published about Hungary’s media situation in the future,” it added.
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Hungary’s media authority has put out absolute propaganda. Opposition radio outlets were forced off the airways by Fidesz and can only broadcast by internet. I listened to one station and witnessed a Fidesz directed hacking operation that disrupted its’ broadcast which was subsequently reported by the station. Media operates largely through advertising. For any company to advertise in an opposition newspaper, radio broadcast etc. invites mafia method retaliation by the Fidesz government on the business. That is how opposition is shut down. Forget television and billboards. They are all Fidesz controlled. One small independent operator advertising for the opposition in outdoor spaces like utility poles was put out of business by Fidesz which changed the law to make it impossible for the business to operate. When the company became insolvent a Fidesz connected competitor bought it and Fidesz then revoked the law to allow the now Fidesz controlled company to post propaganda for Fidesz.