A clockwork orange

Photo: Adam Reichardt

Facing grave financial challenges, the weekly landed in the orbit of Mária Schmidt, who bought the title for about 240 million HUF (736,000 euros) and, as of early 2017, the billionaire businesswoman officially announced her ownership. Schmidt is known as the chief director of the popular Budapest museum, the House of Terror, and has been called Viktor Orbán’s favourite historian. Whenever the innermost circle of the Hungarian governing Fidesz party’s supporters is convened, she is present.

Mercenary list

With the new owner, a familiar Hungarian scenario began to play out. In early February that year, Gábor Lambert (the editor in chief) quit, and the vast majority of journalists working there followed him; they were replaced with young analysts from Fidesz-friendly think tanks; and along with a handful of new journalists, the ideology of the paper has made a complete U-turn. Political commentator Tamás Lánczi was appointed as Lambert’s successor. Tamás Lánczi is the son of András Lánczi, who is currently the rector at Corvinus University – a top Budapest school – and is believed to be one of the key architects of Fidesz’s rapidly-changing ideology. Hence, it is hardly surprising that the paper has become an unconditional supporter of the Orbán government.

Figyelő has recently published several stories that have gained international attention, such as one piece that listed the names of individuals in Hungary who are accused of being “mercenaries” of the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros. It did the same with fellows of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Centre for Social Sciences, by accusing them of not publishing enough “proper” (read: pro- Orbán) research. These pieces, which were reminiscent of the 1940s, also listed people who were already deceased, and when it became apparent, Lánczi reacted even more furiously instead of admitting a serious transgression.

Another example is a front-page interview with Magda Nasrin Katona, who was presented as an expert on migration. Later it turned out that there was an ongoing criminal procedure against her for mistranslating the testimony of an asylum seeker during a court procedure (she officially translated the pleas as guilty, despite the asylum seeker claiming to be innocent). A simple Google search would have shown that the “expert” was in fact personally motivated (not to mention her lack of expertise overall) and should not have been considered the most reliable source.

Having been a quality weekly for several decades, Figyelő has now become a partisan publication which survives exclusively with revenue it receives from government-sponsored advertising; without this, the paper would have quickly gone under. The paper has lost more than half of its 7,500 readers. This is a statistic the publisher admits, but many believe the real number is even lower. The vampiring of the paper is a symbol of the government’s greed. Honestly, with its remaining 4,000 readers (at best), does Figyelő really matter in the grand strategy of the Orbán government? The answer is probably no. In fact, what really matters are the publications that have the real audience.

A guaranteed 2.8 million per month

Since its founding in 1998, Origo was one of the best outlets within the Hungarian media sphere. Its balanced articles and quality content made it the most popular news site, while its owner, Hungarian Telekom (the local subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom), guaranteed its independence. The downfall of Origo began in 2014 after it published an investigative piece on János Lázár, an Orbán strongman, and his secret foreign trips. The government let the owners know its dissatisfaction. Telekom dismissed the editor-in-chief, and in a sign of solidarity almost every senior journalist followed him.

The next editorial team’s independence has never been seriously questioned (as someone who worked there at that time, I can confidently say this), but around that time it was also rumoured that Telekom wanted to get rid of Origo. A deal was made in early 2016 for 13.2 million euros and the outlet was bought by a company indirectly attached to György Matolcsy, the governor of the central bank and a key ally of Orbán. Since last October it became clear which direction the newspaper would go since Matolcsy’s son became its CEO.

The change of Origo is one of the most painful chapters in recent Hungarian media history. A website that was known for its high journalist standards has now turned into a propaganda machine. The country’s great photo desk has vanished and there are no longer any classic feature stories, nor critical investigations that could blemish the government’s image. Most colleagues have quit (or were fired) and the new team vehemently attacks anyone the government orders, often with authorless articles.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the audience has not disappeared but transformed. Having 2.8 million visitors per month (in a country of ten million people) keeps the website among the most influential new outlets. As a result, it was no surprise when Orbán gave them an interview, after a decade-long break, in the heat of the refugee quota referendum campaign in October 2016. The prime minister did not have to worry about sensitive or hard questions, and he used the opportunity as an effective way to deliver his political message to a mass audience without any disturbances.

18×1

An even greater conquest took place with the regional newspapers. In the 19 Hungarian counties, there are 18 daily newspapers that are considered the most important local news sources. It is a generational tradition that families buy these papers, but not necessarily because they are interested in journalism but due to habit. The circulation numbers speak for themselves. Among all political print dailies in Hungary, the local newspaper in the Győr-Moson-Sopron country, Kisalföld, has the largest readership. In the first quarter of 2018, it had a daily circulation of 52,000 copies – more than twice the circulation of the largest national daily, Népszava. Apart from Kisalföld, seven other regional papers have larger circulation numbers than Népszava.

In the last several years, all 18 regional papers have landed into the hands of Fidesz-friendly owners. Thirteen are now owned by Mediaworks, a company run by Lőrinc Mészáros, the wealthiest person in Hungary and a close friend of the prime minister. Two others belong to Lapcom that is owned by the “pope” of the Hungarian film industry, Andy Vajna, and another three are published by Russmedia which belongs to Heinrich Pecina, an Austrian businessman who had a key role in the closure of the then biggest national daily, Népszabadság. The acquisitions were completed by the summer of 2017, making the whole country an “orange field” (the official colour of Fidesz).

In the first quarter of this year, these papers had a cumulative circulation of 400,000 copies. Even with a moderate decrease (the circulation was 440,000 in 2017) it is clear that these are the real media bastions of Fidesz. The stories covered by these newspapers are controlled by a central board which distributes a four-page daily sheet with the key messages that should be conveyed to each of the 18 papers. This is the reason for those absurd montages depicting Orbán as he gave his Christmas interviews to the central board, while all the regional papers had to publish it as the top story (with the same picture). Generally, all these newspapers are banned from publishing anything that is non-authorised. For instance, if one listens to state radio, watches state television, or reads regional newspapers, he or she would find the same stories covered with the same narrative and often with the exact same wording.

Historic losses

The Hungarian national newspaper market is disappointingly bleak. In less than two years, its two leading papers were shut down: Népszabadság (with a circulation of 37,000 in October 2016) and Magyar Nemzet (with a circulation of 13,000 in April this year right after the parliamentary elections). For that reason, there is only one independent national daily left, the aforementioned Népszava where government influence is also rumoured. The other two remaining national dailies are Magyar Idők and Magyar Hírlap – both loyal to the government but without any official data, though according to market gossip their combined readership is no more than 15,000.

When it comes to the closing of Magyar Nemzet, one particular development needs to be addressed. The paper was owned by Viktor Orbán’s one-time best friend and brother-in-arms Lajos Simicska, who built his media portfolio in the 2000s when Fidesz was in opposition. He also owned the cable news channel Hír TV, Lánchíd radio and the weekly Heti Válasz. In February 2015 he had a public falling out with the prime minister. His media outlets started to become more critical of the government, but at the same time a significant proportion of their loyal audiences left. Until April this year, there were still a few outlets that were critical of the government from conservative perspectives not connected to the right-wing government which in fact issued a financial boycott against them, leaving the fate of those outlets entirely to the goodwill of the owner.

This lasted until Fidesz’s landslide election victory.  Simicska submitted by shutting down and selling his media portfolio, leaving hundreds jobless. With any lack of criticism coming from the right, Hungarian media is now divided between Fidesz-loyalists and Fidesz-enemies.

Regulating and rewarding

With the loss of Simicska’s media empire, other actors needed to be invited to the table – for example, Lőrinc Mészáros, Andy Vajna, and Árpád Habony (Orbán’s enigmatic chief advisor). This triumvirate has become the main stakeholder in today’s Hungarian media. Apart from the outlets that were forced to make U-turns, they also built new ones. Habony’s media company publishes the free daily tabloid, Lokál, which distributes 150,000 copies in Budapest alone. Political enemies are also attacked by two news websites, 888 and Pesti Srácok, which are heavily stuffed with pro-government content.

Apart from “private entrepreneurships”, a few things must be said about the official state media. It operates with an annual budget of 245 million euros of taxpayer money, but it has experienced a gradual decrease in audience numbers. The “gleichschaltung” of the state media already started in 2010, after the first two-third-majority victory of Fidesz. Staff who were working for state television and radio were shepherded into a common company called MTVA, which is responsible for any kind of production. Consequently, the outlets that were once independent from each other are now univocally spreading pure political messages.

In addition, the government also makes sure money is provided to operate this gigantic empire. In 2015 the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister – nicknamed as the propaganda ministry – was established under the leadership of Antal Rogán. His ministry is the one that operates the National Communications Office which decides the measure and platforms of spending public advertisement money – it is a perfect weapon for the government to use to regulate and reward media owners. In its first year of operation, the office spent 76 million euros mostly on Fidesz-friendly media, but since then no data has been published. This created a rather bizarre situation in 2016 when the state became the biggest stakeholder of the Hungarian public advertisement sector; and in 2017, among the nine national political print newspapers, three of the least-read received 87 per cent of state-sponsored ads. In the past eight years, Orbán has managed to establish a perfectly self-propelled steamroller against the logic of the free market. It is expensive and sub-standard, but it is effective.

The end of journalism

Consequently, it is entirely superfluous to require proper journalistic standards among the majority of Hungary’s media outlets. One can feel outraged that those associated with George Soros were listed and feel disappointed seeing the 180-degree turns forced by political will. These examples illustrate that Orbán does not consider the press as the guardians of democracy, but as a vehicle to deliver his propaganda. It is a tool that neither asks questions nor raises doubts, but only implements his orders. Therefore the media, as it happened many times before in Central and Eastern Europe, has become a weapon of power, but in Hungary it has never been this lethal.

Western commentators, who demand the rule of law, democratic pluralism and media freedom, often ignore this, not truly understanding the extent to which the media have become politicised. In order to truly understand how Hungarian media operates, one should look at Hungarian politics itself because the media is its shiny reflection. The same methods that Orbán used to establish his political power were then used during the occupation of the media.

Szabolcs Vörös is a foreign affairs journalist based in Budapest. His career started in 2010. He was most recently a staff reporter at the Hungarian weekly, Heti Válasz, which was shut down in August 2018.

Hungary, media, Orban, Viktor Orban