{"id":31512,"date":"2022-05-13T15:44:55","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T12:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/?p=31512"},"modified":"2022-10-25T12:39:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T09:39:10","slug":"antelopes-and-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aej-bulgaria.org\/en\/antelopes-and-tigers\/","title":{"rendered":"Antelopes and tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

AEJ\u2019s Hungarian Section about the critical press situation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly after the fourth consecutive two-thirds victory of Viktor Orban\u2019s Fidesz Party the highest authority of the field, and the Media\u00a0Council denied to extend the frequency expiring this September of thetiny alternative\u00a0Tilos Radio<\/a>\u00a0with approximately 6-8 thousand listeners.<\/p>\n

Tilos (in English: Prohibited) with a strongly anti-communist past will\u00a0be most probably forced to go over to the internet, as was the case\u00a0recently with the much bigger, and still popular\u00a0Klub Radio.<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, handsome legal arguments had been included in the official text of the\u00a0decision saying that Tilos did not comply with the requirements of the\u00a0tender. According to its managing director it is simply impossible,\u00a0because Tilos is being operated on voluntary basis without any penny\u00a0of advertising revenue, and they are unable to imitate the big\u00a0for profit audiovisual companies documenting every minute of their\u00a0programmes, paying attention to the ratio of speech and music, and to the\u00a0ratio of Hungarian and foreign music as well.<\/p>\n

Tilos is unable to fulfil\u00a0these requirements, this is like tigers competing with antelopes, added\u00a0the managing director.<\/p>\n

In illiberal democracies, called sometimes \u201chybrid regimes\u201d, the\u00a0advocates of independent journalism can often feel themselves like\u00a0antelopes endangered by wild tigers. The Board of AEJ\u2019s Hungarian\u00a0Section is concerned because of the uncertain future of the remaining\u00a0segment of critical and fact-finding journalism in Hungary \u2013\u00a0approximately 20 per cent of the whole domain \u2013 not serving the\u00a0propaganda aims of the ruling illiberal party coalition. We know that\u00a0there are much worse media situations all over the world, in Russia,\u00a0Turkey, Azerbaijan and elsewhere \u2013 from Chile to\u00a0 Saudi Arabia. Still,\u00a0we can not forget that Hungary is now ranked 85th in the\u00a0press\u00a0<\/a>freedom ranking of Reporters Without Borders, which surveyed 180\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n

Despite being somewhere in the middle of the world list,\u00a0our ranking in the EU is much more controversial, because among the\u00a027 member states only Greece and Bulgaria have a worse media\u00a0situation than Hungary.<\/p>\n

However we know that even traditional liberal\u00a0democracies are not immune to market-driven pressures, and many\u00a0other pressures, we are still concerned by the media capture in our\u00a0country where the whole regional print media and radio stations are in\u00a0the hands of government friendly entrepreneurs. The list is far too long\u00a0and has been well-known ever since the emergence of the illiberal\u00a0political structure of Fidesz.<\/p>\n

The subordinated role of public service\u00a0media to the political and ideological aims of Fidesz\u2019s power during\u00a0the election campaign ha srecently\u00a0\u00a0been criticized even by a well-sknown Hungarian right wing publisher and columnist; opposition\u00a0parties and its leaders were practically shut out from appearing on\u00a0Hungarian Television.<\/p>\n

AEJ\u2019s Hungarian Section together with other professional\u00a0organisations strongly oppose the misuse of government (budget)\u00a0funds to promote government propaganda \u2013 being the case in Hungary,\u00a0Poland and elsewhere \u2013, and the distortion of market relations in\u00a0favour of government-friendly media; we urge that journalists should\u00a0carry out their work without intimidation and should be able to fulfil\u00a0their public watchdog role where ever they work in Hungarian media,\u00a0as was declared by Council of Europe\u2019s General Secretary on the\u00a0occasion of World Press Freedom\u2019s Day of 3 May.<\/p>\n

Liberal democratic governments, parties, and institutions should be\u00a0aware that in recent years some elements of Fidesz\u2019s model for media\u00a0control and capture by politicians, government loyal business people\u00a0and oligarchs have been adopted in some other EU-countries.<\/p>\n

Therefore we deeply agree with Barbara Trionfi\u2019s claim; IPI\u00a0Executive Director urged a strong and principled movement by the\u00a0world\u2019s democracies \u201eto push back against a wave of authoritarianism\u00a0around the world that threatens fundamental rights, including press\u00a0freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can the engine of media capture be stopped, and if so how? Only\u00a0uncertainty is certain; recently a low circulation left-wing print weekly\u00a0\u2013 called\u00a0168 \u00d3ra<\/a> (Hours) \u2013 has been forced to go over on to the Internet, which is by far not the first, and certainly not the last case in Hungary, and it is a skinny consolation, that many print media are going bankrupt in other parts of the world as well. We are pleased to acknowledge the US President Joe Biden\u2019s statement that now free press matters more \u201ethan it ever did in the last century\u201d: an honest, but exaggerating declaration because free press had mattered unspeakably much ever since during the long struggles for democracy in the Western hemisphere.<\/p>\n

And the question remains: can encouraging statements stop media capture in countries like Hungary?<\/p>\n

We in the Hungarian Section believe that all kinds of advocates of\u00a0independent journalism within the Hungarian border and foreign\u00a0institutions abroad, mainly and first of all in the European Union have\u00a0a common responsibility to grab every legal means to stop the further\u00a0erosion of democratic institutions, media pluralism and liberal values.<\/p>\n

Antelopes have to be defended against tigers, no matter where they are.<\/p>\n