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To put this in context: for imagine the largest, and one of the last remaining independent news site in a country where most of the media is centrally controlle

To put this in context: for imagine the largest, and one of the last remaining independent news site in a country where most of the media is centrally controlled. Criticism of the government in that media is unknown. This site is read by close to half of the online population. The government is clearly irritated by this. This site was Index, in Hungary. The editorial board resigning is a response of the takeover attempt from government sources. Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians will like be the Guardian and the New York Times. If this was happening in an autocratic country, we’d just shrug. But this happening in an EU country, in a democracy. The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still?

cheez 6y ago
Well... they can just start another index. As long as that isn't prohibited
- mihaaly 6y ago
  There are no prohibition of independent journalism in Hungary, it is the opposite, it is broadcasted as essential. The way the governing party is obstructing independent and critical voices is by manipulating financial background and adjacent concepts (taxes on advertisement coupled with gigantic marketing spending on friendly organizations avoiding critical medium, stigmatize and regulate foreign financial sources classifying as undue political influence and limiting by regulations, taking over and influencing the market players supporting friendly media only, etc.) ruining the livelihood of opponents. They can theoretically start new Index but basically they must work for free or on charity of readers (who have very limited financial means). The current story was started by changes in the ownership structure of the Index, escalating only (and precisely) after EU budget negotiations got closed - where news of endangered independent press could have put the prime minister into disadvantageous position.
  - cheez 6y ago
    Still blows my mind how people believe giving government more power is the answer to any problem. Sorry to hear that democracy is being attacked in this way. Best of luck to you.
Vivtek 6y ago
You know what Orbán has in common with, say, Kádár? They were both "democratically" elected.
Fjolsvith 6y ago
> The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? The press doesn't have to be a centralized, edited company. Citizens can report news independent and locally. Indeed, this type of journalism is resistant to the oppression of government, and the bias of media conglomerates.
- bmcn2020 6y ago
  > The press doesn't have to be a centralized, edited company. Citizens can report news independent and locally. Citizens can, but the quality and length would for the most part be short and incidental (outbreaks, viral videos, etc.) But in-depth investigations, into corruption, into nation-wide, critical issues, will usually require dedicated staff with budgets. Can't place that on a citizen's shoulders
  - YinglingLight 6y ago
    >But in-depth investigations Long since dead in centralized Media. Not click-baity enough. Doesn't fit the attention-span they want. You still assume that the Media is motivated to share truths. They are in the business of creating narratives. I could link you to brilliant connections being made by citizens on Ghislaine Maxwell, her well-connected Father, and a number of elite families. How about Attorney General Bill Barr's Father working at the same school for the gifted with a young Jeffrey Epstein? But such investigation work would be decried as a right wing conspiracy.
- atonse 6y ago
  Citizens are doing this with what spare time and what spare income? And with no backing of a larger entity if they get lawsuits? There’s a need for well funded journalistic organizations everywhere. Well funded (and independent) being the key because people have to eat.
- intended 6y ago
  In all fields, there is work that is necessary but not fun. Money/incentives are needed to bridge that gap.
tasogare 6y ago
How is independence defined? In France, every big newspaper is funded partially by the state. The total amount is close to 2 billions euros, with big news paper getting from 5 to 7 millions a year. Without this they will close. Sure, on the surface they criticize some government action, but the real control is more about the questions they don’t ask, the topics they don’t cover and the not-so-subtle political orientation of every article published. Control by big entreprise is the second factor that make they not really independent. Again, this make the newspaper not challenging anything when is comes to corporate interests. In a way it’s better in the Hungarian case because things are really obvious so it may trigger people to take action for a change.
- sjwright 6y ago
  Funding doesn't have to mean editorial control. Around the world there are numerous instances of Government-funded news publishers and broadcasters that have superior editorial independence than their commercial competitors. The BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia come to mind. Funding CAN mean editorial control if the funder deems it so, but that's equally true of commercial media as it does public broadcasters. Unless you happen to like the political bias of Rupert Murdoch, it would be hard to argue that he doesn't exert more influence over his publications than the British and Australian governments do theirs.
- andrepd 6y ago
  Funding != control. Newspapers are floundering all over the world. It's great that the state ensures the continued existence of a healthy and diverse press through independent grants. The potential for abuse is low if the rules for awarding those grants are transparent and the comitee that oversees it is plural. Because the choice isn't "government money" or "no money", it's state (democratic) money or corporate (undemocratic) money! Looking at things like the murdoch empire we can see which we prefer.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    There's usually a relationship between being funded by and being critical of something. That may not be true in all cases, but it's true often enough that we ask everyone to disclose it when they speak on something/someone they get money from. This doesn't even have to be an explicit thing. You don't need to threaten people to cut their funding, they will like the system the way it is set up, because they profit from it being set up that way. You can't be independent from something if you depend on it to pay your bills.
andrepd 6y ago
Of course not. "Democracy" isn't just it being written in the constitution "this is a democracy". That's a terribly simplistic view. By that measure, NK is democratic... In fact a true democracy only exists when a huge number of very complicated systems and institutions are working properly. You need a well-educated population with equal access to opportunities, a free, healthy, and diverse press, an independent judiciary, a healthy political landscape, etc.
- lawn 6y ago
  > You need a well-educated population with equal access to opportunities, a free, healthy, and diverse press, an independent judiciary, a healthy political landscape, etc. Then the US isn't a democracy?
  - praptak 6y ago
    It is a somewhat flawed democracy.
    - tectec 6y ago
      As is every democracy.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Not only somewhat, but critically: increasingly.
  - luisfmh 6y ago
    Yeah, I would argue it isn't. It's at least not a healthy democracy.
  - pensatoio 6y ago
    The United States is not a democracy. It’s a democratic republic. The founders explicitly did not want to create a democracy.
    - 6y ago
dmortin 6y ago
> Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians will like be the Guardian and the New York Times. Not true, they will likely start an other site and ask for donations, so it's up to the people to support them. In Hungary like elsewhere people don't like to pay for news sites and in Hungary the government works hard, so that every freely available media pushes the government propaganda. People have to realize they must pay if they want independent news sites to exist. Relying only on ad revenue is not a solid foundation.
- jungturk 6y ago
  >People have to realize This is how I see it as well. We, collectively, are confronted with the reality that clean information is required for a healthy civic function. Maybe like the Broad Street Pump cholera outbreak rectified unsanitary civic water management?
  - Aerroon 6y ago
    >We, collectively, are confronted with the reality that clean information is required for a healthy civic function. I feel the opposite. We must learn to filter that news for ourselves, because you never know when the news is lying to you.
    - melodiousfunk 6y ago
      Yes, in the meantime that you and I and the rest of our politically and technologically savvy demographic are exercising our darwinian news filtering improvement capacity, millions of less globally aware, less up-to-date and less capable, given other more present temporal, logistical and emotional burdens, are still going to vote with whatever news filtering skills they have at the moment
      - Aerroon 6y ago
        I agree that the problem is that filtering out the truth is hard, but creating an arbiter of truth also has many other problems. Whoever gets control over the arbiter can shape the truth top their liking. Right now what we view as the truth as a society is shaped by the sum of everyone speaking out, but if you think you know better then you can simply override it. Others might disagree, but you're still encouraged to think for yourself rather than rely on someone else.
vsareto 6y ago
>The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Yes but likely only for a short time. Every government has people outside of journalism that makes democracy happen.
- suzzer99 6y ago
  Russia has that right now?
  - vsareto 6y ago
    Even an independent press doesn't fare well against state assassins.
dstroot 6y ago
> ... can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Expanding this question: can a country where the government lies to its citizens, and withholds information from the press, and actively seeks to discredit news sources critical of it be considered a democracy? If citizens cannot be informed they cannot make rational, democratic decisions.
- rocqua 6y ago
  Such a country can be considered a democracy, as long as the government isn't too successful in suppressing information and the press. Especially if, in the end, the citizens vote that government out of power.
- phkahler 6y ago
  The press needs to behave too. They need to report, not sensationalize. They need to be objective, not politically active. And when given the opportunity to sit before a president addressing a global crisis, and then granted the opportunity to ask questions they should not inject their bias and call him a racist. When subsequently shut down "you're a terrible reporter" the rest of the press should not claim they are being attacked. It all boils down to defining the roles (on all sides) and then doing that job. It's when government, press, companies, or individuals make light of their responsibility that things fall appart.
  - shuntress 6y ago
    "The press needs to behave too. They need to report, not sensationalize. They need to be objective, not politically active." This is not accurate. The free press has the freedom to report however they want. That is the whole point of the free press.
    - regularfry 6y ago
      How a free press operate and what the people need are not necessarily aligned. The populace needs the sum total of the free press to result in something approximating objectivity. If that's not happening, the people aren't being served by the concept of a free press. If all you've got is two sensationalising ends and nothing in the middle, it's very difficult to tell what's going on. Worse, if you've got one broadly accurate and reliable wing opposed by a group who will intentionally exaggerate, lie, and demonise, and the public think the truth is actually somewhere in the middle, the latter group win. What's not clear or easy is how you might go about cleaning up such a situation.
lvass 6y ago
Yes. Democracies aren't about public funding of poorly viable corporations.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mikorym 6y ago
Why do people read the Guardian and the New York Times? Or are these just illustrative? By the way: > The question begs itself Rather: This invites the question. Begging the question is assuming the conclusion in a circular argument. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
- mikorym 6y ago
  Ah, always nice to be downvoted. But if you say "this begs the question" it may be a common thing to say, but it is also incorrect.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Another way to put this..how much does the news media influence people? In the U.S. 90% of the news media is held by 5 conglomerates. You get creepy stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI&feature=emb_logo Makes you wonder how reliable the news media is in the U.S. I can't even imagine how bad it is in countries where oligarchs control things.
- cowpig 6y ago
  The thing you're linking to is a phenomenon specific to the Sinclair Broadcast Group[0], a partisan media organization that is actively attempting to undermine local journalism in the US and replace it with neo-conservative propaganda. To compare any of the major US news conglomerates to this would be a false equivalence. Also, any comment on the centralization of media in the US that doesn't mention Facebook is outdated at this point. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
  - manquer 6y ago
    Controlling media and influencing it social or otherwise is a concern when media is a oligarchy , social media is also an oligarchy , there are few players who dominate most of the readership . The big American conglomerates are just as partisan as Sinclair , there is still some professionalism that they have not devolved to Sinclair level. However trends in recent past point towards only downward movement simply because of economics , you make more money telling people what they want to hear.
fogetti 6y ago
> can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Looking at you Japan. "The taming of Japan’s media watchdogs has attracted growing attention from overseas. On April 19, David Kaye, the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression, wrapped up a weeklong fact-finding mission to Japan by expressing “deep and genuine concern” about declining media independence in Asia’s richest democracy. The following day, the Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders lowered Japan’s place in its annual ranking of world press freedom to 72nd out of 180 nations, between Tanzania and Lesotho" And no, this is not whataboutism. This is just a context so to understand that the above turn of events that the OP refers to is not unprecedented in other strong democracies either. Or is Japan an autocracy too?
- pmlnr 6y ago
  > Or is Japan an autocracy too In this specific case, I'm not certain there is a trivial answer. Having worked for a Japanese company, the unshakable hierarchy is unknown to Western culture.
- toyg 6y ago
  > is Japan an autocracy too? Ehh... it is a "flawed democracy" in that same index, as you would expect from a country where the same party has ruled almost uninterrupted for 65 years.
arkh 6y ago
Independent press does not exist: - if the money comes from the state they're incentivized to speak good of the state - if the money comes from ads they're bound to report what does not make to many waves - if the money comes from readers, they're going to write articles for better retention / more new subscribers Democracy does not need the press. It needs an informed population which has learned to think critically.
- wyldfire 6y ago
  > Democracy does not need the press. I don't agree at all. There's numerous instances happening very, very frequently of the press shaping public events sometimes only by their revelation of an ongoing investigation. An informed, critical thinking population won't/can't do investigative work.
- jbeam 6y ago
  > It needs an informed population which has learned to think critically. How does the population get informed about the government without the press?
- oytis 6y ago
  As the case of Cambridge Analytica shows most people overestimate their ability to think critically. We do need reputable sources of information, otherwise we're just a manipulable flock.
- hedora 6y ago
  Independent press would mean that there are many different news organizations under independent control. We used to have that in the US because we used to have and enforce laws against media consolidation.
- discreteevent 6y ago
  I think a lot of these comments are trivializing the situation in Hungary. The point is that if the government has shut down the last newspaper independent of it (even though maybe not of ads) then they will shut down any public speech independent of it and then you cannot have a population informed about how it is being governed (whatever about being informed about consumer choice which is a bit more trivial)
malechimp 6y ago
Democracy? With guys like Victor Orban? Nope. You think you live in a democracy but it is something else entirely. I'm not playing smart. I'm a Greek myself and our govt is mimicking Orban to a large degree. TBH I'm afraid that democracy is going down the drain for most of EU anyway. The way yellow-vests were treated in "democratic" France (hint: plastic bullets shot at demostrators' eyes) kind of convinced me on that one. As for Greece, well, yeah. You won't find anything but praise for the govt in the mass media. A few fringe ones daring the other side of events survive on readers subscriptions. All tied up in a tightly knitted nexus of political friends, family, friendly businessmen, huge debt (govt party has a massive debt on its own as most mass media also do), ever expanding police-state, religious leaders (Orthodox Christian Church) and God knows whom else. So, anyway, all the best...
- sn41 6y ago
  This is the current normal in many countries. Actually many of these have been empowered by some kind of internet troll movement. The emergence of such parties is eerily similar - an overwhelming majority who is peeved at some designated and vilified minority getting even minor privileges. Plus a lot of ranting against left liberalism and globalism. They conveniently forget the fact that such egalitarian viewpoints have more or less assured a stable 75 years in recent world history. Nearly a century of peace in large parts of the world - this has been a great achievement unprecedented in the last 500 years. Unfortunately for us, I think since Internet 2.0, this trend has been exacerbated by the echo chambers which constitute most social media.
  - Accujack 6y ago
    >Actually many of these have been empowered by some kind of internet troll movement. It's not a "movement". It's information warfare enabled by the fact that most information sources online don't even give lip service to the idea of separating propaganda and manipulation from honest public discussion. The Russians are (obviously) getting very good at this, and other countries like China aren't far behind. Until companies like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and others recognize that protecting public discussion from interference isn't optional, you can expect this to continue.
whack 6y ago
Thank you for the local context. Can you clarify more about the takeover attempt? The article portrays it as a conflict between the site's editor, and the Board President. Can you clarify the government's role in this? Are there any governmental barriers preventing these journalists from forming a new independent news site?
jxf 6y ago
> To put this in context: for imagine the largest, and one of the last remaining independent news site in a country where most of the media is centrally controlled. Criticism of the government in that media is unknown. This site is read by close to half of the online population. The government is clearly irritated by this. Thanks for providing this context to foreigners; I wouldn't have known any of this or been able to succinctly summarize it with some research the way you just did.
edem 6y ago
Hungarian here. It stopped to be a democracy the moment they attained more than 66% of the votes (with gerrymandering of course). They also control the other branches of power. They also control the attorney general who can stop any prosecution against any member of the Fidesz before it starts. They control the media now. The whole system makes me sick. And I'm one of those people who would vote for a paty like Fidesz if it was a regular country (I'm not left wing at all).
- old-gregg 6y ago
  Can they be voted out in the next election?
  - edem 6y ago
    I honestly don't know. We thought we can the last time there was a vote and they won with a strong majority. The real problem here is that there is no good alternative. The left wing parties are a joke at best. I'm kinda torn between all the major parties since I don't believe that any of them would work. That's why I voted for the new kid on the block (Momentum).
    - epicureanideal 6y ago
      That sounds like he's winning legitimately. He may not be the candidate people want, but just from your comment it sounds like he's the best they have.
      - szemet 6y ago
        "Opposition parties are so inept: they could not even operate corruption." (Do not know if it is original or some old joke: I have heard it from hungarian stand-up comedian Tibor Bödőcs - who is btw basically the only comedian left who dare (or talented enough to get away with) criticizing every side of the political spectrum here - nowadays mostly Orbán of course...)
- hfsjkfshjk 6y ago
ProAm 6y ago
> But this happening in an EU country, in a democracy. Democracy was a 20th century construct.
- jaakl 6y ago
  More precise would be: ”idea that democracy is best-for-anyone solution is sooo 20th century”. It is probably best for many, maybe most, but the others need to find their own local best. People can be equal, but history, culture, neighbourhoods etc are not
NicoJuicy 6y ago
The EU is based on democratic principles. Too bad some bad actors ruin or for the rest of us ( I'm not saying the EU is perfect though, just young). I spoke to someone from Hungary and they literally said people voted for Orban because of 1 thing: keep immigrants out.
- squarefoot 6y ago
  They very likely were exposed to the same kind of anti-immigrants propaganda most governments use against their citizens. It happens pretty much everywhere. Immigrants can't vote, so they're extremely easy to use as scapegoats because they can't fight back politically. Once a government plants in their citizens that immigrants are the root of all evil, they've pretty much won: anything wrong in the country will be attributed to illegal immigrants so that the attention will be taken away from the government. It's the same old trick of blaming a weak minority that cannot defend itself using any legal means, and frankly I find appalling that people still falls for it.
sonotathrowaway 6y ago
Hungary is not considered a liberal democracy, it’s considered an “illiberal democracy”. Orbán has pioneered ways to degrade a liberal democracy to an illiberal one, and is the template many right wing leaders of other countries are in the process of emulating: Bolsonaro, Trump, and Poland, though I believe their strategy has been more concerned with compromising their judicial branch.
d0mine 6y ago
In what sense, news organizations that you've mentioned are "independent"? (if you live outside the bubble, the bias is clear)
syedkarim 6y ago
"Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians will like be the Guardian and the New York Times." Don't forget 444.hu. They are nowhere near as large as Index, but just as outspoken and critical of the government.
billjings 6y ago
Hold on: Hungary is not an autocratic country? Hasn't Fidesz controlled the country for over ten years now? Haven't they amended the constitution? Packed the courts? This is not a topic that is at the top of my mind, so I am not an expert. But Hungary being a democratic society is news to me.
- jupp0r 6y ago
  You make it sound like being a democracy is a binary decision, when in reality it's a multidimensional spectrum with lots of grey areas at the edges. Just look at the current state of affairs in the US, there are plenty of warning signs. Is it still a democracy? In my mind it is. The other commonality is that both countries chose their autocrat by fair elections.
  - adventured 6y ago
    > The other commonality is that both countries chose their autocrat by fair elections. There's almost zero evidence to support the notion that Trump is an autocrat. He's a badly performing political outsider that is about to go down in flames with one of the least successful, least effective Presidencies in US history. He's going to lose by normal democratic means, being voted out of office. His Presidency ultimately isn't going to matter much at all. In the first months Biden will unleash a wave of executive orders, mostly wiping out anything Trump did that the Democrats disliked. He's about to be thrown out of office by a candidate that can barely make it through four minute interviews, a candidate whose prep team has to keep him hidden away and tightly controlled because of obvious severe problems. There is hardly anybody in the establishment in Washington that supports Trump at this point. There is almost nobody in the media / press that supports Trump. The press is never afraid to attack him, they do it 24/7 openly. What autocracy? Trump is closer to a bumbling clown with no business being in politics, than an autocrat. What did Trump do? He built a wall? No he didn't, he didn't build anything. He banned all the Muslims? No he didn't, other previous presidents similarly blocked many of those same nations for security reasons. He shut down all the illegal immigration, and deported a zillion people? No he didn't, Obama deported more people. He radically remade our immigration system? No he didn't. He abolished the ACA? No he didn't. He took control of the military industrial complex levers and launched a bunch of wars? No he didn't. So what did he do? Trump's entire Presidency has only a few signatures to it. He cuts taxes, he was wildly divisive (he raged a lot, tweeted a lot), he conflicted with China a lot, he didn't launch any new wars, he failed over and over again to accomplish much of significance, he fought with the press a lot, and he installed a bunch of federal judges (which is going to be limited by his single term anyway). And then he was gone after a mere four years (his polls are so bad, the Democrats would all have to drop dead of Covid for Trump to win again). So the world is upside down, everything is bad, the US is over, it's an autocratic nightmare, because of this clown that was thrown out in just four years. I call bullshit.
cosmodisk 6y ago
Frankly speaking, each country gets what it deserves. I'm sure there are some Hungarians who are opposed to the current government but majority seem to be just fine with ' It's all Soros' fault' or 'Screw the EU'. Back at home,a few years ago, people decided that it's a good idea to give majority to the party that mainly consists of millionaire farmers, who barely pay minimum wages. And people were stupid enough to say things like: ' they'll increase income for everyone and etc.'. It's like we are walking into some high end spaceship and some guys are concerned where they've left their pitchforks... People also seem to be happy buying some 3rd class newspapers writing crap instead of trying to read at least a bit of investigative journalism. Maybe this is the time where it all goes down to shit for 20-30 years and then it will get better again. Europe especially can't seem to have normal life for too long.
Hamuko 6y ago
>But this happening in an EU country, in a democracy. Not anymore. Freedom House classifies Hungary as a "Transitional or Hybrid Regime".
m0zg 6y ago
> independent news outlet ... New York Times It's not independent, and it's not a news outlet.
pyuser583 6y ago
Maybe it’s because I’m tired, but for a moment I thought we were talking about Hong Kong. If I can’t keep straight in my head which country is having its press shut down, we live in sad times. In America, we don’t have press shut down, as much as it becomes “sponsored.” Someone decides to run it at a loss, or close to one. Quality goes down, advertising goes up, and ideology seeps in. Lots of “small town papers” are just brands managed by conglomerates.

cheez 6y ago

Well... they can just start another index. As long as that isn't prohibited

mihaaly 6y ago
There are no prohibition of independent journalism in Hungary, it is the opposite, it is broadcasted as essential. The way the governing party is obstructing independent and critical voices is by manipulating financial background and adjacent concepts (taxes on advertisement coupled with gigantic marketing spending on friendly organizations avoiding critical medium, stigmatize and regulate foreign financial sources classifying as undue political influence and limiting by regulations, taking over and influencing the market players supporting friendly media only, etc.) ruining the livelihood of opponents. They can theoretically start new Index but basically they must work for free or on charity of readers (who have very limited financial means). The current story was started by changes in the ownership structure of the Index, escalating only (and precisely) after EU budget negotiations got closed - where news of endangered independent press could have put the prime minister into disadvantageous position.
- cheez 6y ago
  Still blows my mind how people believe giving government more power is the answer to any problem. Sorry to hear that democracy is being attacked in this way. Best of luck to you.

Vivtek 6y ago

You know what Orbán has in common with, say, Kádár? They were both "democratically" elected.

Fjolsvith 6y ago

> The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? The press doesn't have to be a centralized, edited company. Citizens can report news independent and locally. Indeed, this type of journalism is resistant to the oppression of government, and the bias of media conglomerates.

bmcn2020 6y ago
> The press doesn't have to be a centralized, edited company. Citizens can report news independent and locally. Citizens can, but the quality and length would for the most part be short and incidental (outbreaks, viral videos, etc.) But in-depth investigations, into corruption, into nation-wide, critical issues, will usually require dedicated staff with budgets. Can't place that on a citizen's shoulders
- YinglingLight 6y ago
  >But in-depth investigations Long since dead in centralized Media. Not click-baity enough. Doesn't fit the attention-span they want. You still assume that the Media is motivated to share truths. They are in the business of creating narratives. I could link you to brilliant connections being made by citizens on Ghislaine Maxwell, her well-connected Father, and a number of elite families. How about Attorney General Bill Barr's Father working at the same school for the gifted with a young Jeffrey Epstein? But such investigation work would be decried as a right wing conspiracy.
atonse 6y ago
Citizens are doing this with what spare time and what spare income? And with no backing of a larger entity if they get lawsuits? There’s a need for well funded journalistic organizations everywhere. Well funded (and independent) being the key because people have to eat.
intended 6y ago
In all fields, there is work that is necessary but not fun. Money/incentives are needed to bridge that gap.

tasogare 6y ago

How is independence defined? In France, every big newspaper is funded partially by the state. The total amount is close to 2 billions euros, with big news paper getting from 5 to 7 millions a year. Without this they will close. Sure, on the surface they criticize some government action, but the real control is more about the questions they don’t ask, the topics they don’t cover and the not-so-subtle political orientation of every article published. Control by big entreprise is the second factor that make they not really independent. Again, this make the newspaper not challenging anything when is comes to corporate interests. In a way it’s better in the Hungarian case because things are really obvious so it may trigger people to take action for a change.

sjwright 6y ago
Funding doesn't have to mean editorial control. Around the world there are numerous instances of Government-funded news publishers and broadcasters that have superior editorial independence than their commercial competitors. The BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia come to mind. Funding CAN mean editorial control if the funder deems it so, but that's equally true of commercial media as it does public broadcasters. Unless you happen to like the political bias of Rupert Murdoch, it would be hard to argue that he doesn't exert more influence over his publications than the British and Australian governments do theirs.
andrepd 6y ago
Funding != control. Newspapers are floundering all over the world. It's great that the state ensures the continued existence of a healthy and diverse press through independent grants. The potential for abuse is low if the rules for awarding those grants are transparent and the comitee that oversees it is plural. Because the choice isn't "government money" or "no money", it's state (democratic) money or corporate (undemocratic) money! Looking at things like the murdoch empire we can see which we prefer.
- luckylion 6y ago
  There's usually a relationship between being funded by and being critical of something. That may not be true in all cases, but it's true often enough that we ask everyone to disclose it when they speak on something/someone they get money from. This doesn't even have to be an explicit thing. You don't need to threaten people to cut their funding, they will like the system the way it is set up, because they profit from it being set up that way. You can't be independent from something if you depend on it to pay your bills.

andrepd 6y ago

Of course not. "Democracy" isn't just it being written in the constitution "this is a democracy". That's a terribly simplistic view. By that measure, NK is democratic... In fact a true democracy only exists when a huge number of very complicated systems and institutions are working properly. You need a well-educated population with equal access to opportunities, a free, healthy, and diverse press, an independent judiciary, a healthy political landscape, etc.

lawn 6y ago
> You need a well-educated population with equal access to opportunities, a free, healthy, and diverse press, an independent judiciary, a healthy political landscape, etc. Then the US isn't a democracy?
- praptak 6y ago
  It is a somewhat flawed democracy.
  - tectec 6y ago
    As is every democracy.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Not only somewhat, but critically: increasingly.
- luisfmh 6y ago
  Yeah, I would argue it isn't. It's at least not a healthy democracy.
- pensatoio 6y ago
  The United States is not a democracy. It’s a democratic republic. The founders explicitly did not want to create a democracy.
  - 6y ago

dmortin 6y ago

> Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians will like be the Guardian and the New York Times. Not true, they will likely start an other site and ask for donations, so it's up to the people to support them. In Hungary like elsewhere people don't like to pay for news sites and in Hungary the government works hard, so that every freely available media pushes the government propaganda. People have to realize they must pay if they want independent news sites to exist. Relying only on ad revenue is not a solid foundation.

jungturk 6y ago
>People have to realize This is how I see it as well. We, collectively, are confronted with the reality that clean information is required for a healthy civic function. Maybe like the Broad Street Pump cholera outbreak rectified unsanitary civic water management?
- Aerroon 6y ago
  >We, collectively, are confronted with the reality that clean information is required for a healthy civic function. I feel the opposite. We must learn to filter that news for ourselves, because you never know when the news is lying to you.
  - melodiousfunk 6y ago
    Yes, in the meantime that you and I and the rest of our politically and technologically savvy demographic are exercising our darwinian news filtering improvement capacity, millions of less globally aware, less up-to-date and less capable, given other more present temporal, logistical and emotional burdens, are still going to vote with whatever news filtering skills they have at the moment
    - Aerroon 6y ago
      I agree that the problem is that filtering out the truth is hard, but creating an arbiter of truth also has many other problems. Whoever gets control over the arbiter can shape the truth top their liking. Right now what we view as the truth as a society is shaped by the sum of everyone speaking out, but if you think you know better then you can simply override it. Others might disagree, but you're still encouraged to think for yourself rather than rely on someone else.

vsareto 6y ago

>The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Yes but likely only for a short time. Every government has people outside of journalism that makes democracy happen.

suzzer99 6y ago
Russia has that right now?
- vsareto 6y ago
  Even an independent press doesn't fare well against state assassins.

dstroot 6y ago

> ... can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Expanding this question: can a country where the government lies to its citizens, and withholds information from the press, and actively seeks to discredit news sources critical of it be considered a democracy? If citizens cannot be informed they cannot make rational, democratic decisions.

rocqua 6y ago
Such a country can be considered a democracy, as long as the government isn't too successful in suppressing information and the press. Especially if, in the end, the citizens vote that government out of power.
phkahler 6y ago
The press needs to behave too. They need to report, not sensationalize. They need to be objective, not politically active. And when given the opportunity to sit before a president addressing a global crisis, and then granted the opportunity to ask questions they should not inject their bias and call him a racist. When subsequently shut down "you're a terrible reporter" the rest of the press should not claim they are being attacked. It all boils down to defining the roles (on all sides) and then doing that job. It's when government, press, companies, or individuals make light of their responsibility that things fall appart.
- shuntress 6y ago
  "The press needs to behave too. They need to report, not sensationalize. They need to be objective, not politically active." This is not accurate. The free press has the freedom to report however they want. That is the whole point of the free press.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    How a free press operate and what the people need are not necessarily aligned. The populace needs the sum total of the free press to result in something approximating objectivity. If that's not happening, the people aren't being served by the concept of a free press. If all you've got is two sensationalising ends and nothing in the middle, it's very difficult to tell what's going on. Worse, if you've got one broadly accurate and reliable wing opposed by a group who will intentionally exaggerate, lie, and demonise, and the public think the truth is actually somewhere in the middle, the latter group win. What's not clear or easy is how you might go about cleaning up such a situation.

lvass 6y ago

Yes. Democracies aren't about public funding of poorly viable corporations.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mikorym 6y ago

Why do people read the Guardian and the New York Times? Or are these just illustrative? By the way: > The question begs itself Rather: This invites the question. Begging the question is assuming the conclusion in a circular argument. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

mikorym 6y ago
Ah, always nice to be downvoted. But if you say "this begs the question" it may be a common thing to say, but it is also incorrect.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Another way to put this..how much does the news media influence people? In the U.S. 90% of the news media is held by 5 conglomerates. You get creepy stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI&feature=emb_logo Makes you wonder how reliable the news media is in the U.S. I can't even imagine how bad it is in countries where oligarchs control things.

cowpig 6y ago
The thing you're linking to is a phenomenon specific to the Sinclair Broadcast Group[0], a partisan media organization that is actively attempting to undermine local journalism in the US and replace it with neo-conservative propaganda. To compare any of the major US news conglomerates to this would be a false equivalence. Also, any comment on the centralization of media in the US that doesn't mention Facebook is outdated at this point. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
- manquer 6y ago
  Controlling media and influencing it social or otherwise is a concern when media is a oligarchy , social media is also an oligarchy , there are few players who dominate most of the readership . The big American conglomerates are just as partisan as Sinclair , there is still some professionalism that they have not devolved to Sinclair level. However trends in recent past point towards only downward movement simply because of economics , you make more money telling people what they want to hear.

fogetti 6y ago

> can a democracy with no independent, local press be considered a democracy still? Looking at you Japan. "The taming of Japan’s media watchdogs has attracted growing attention from overseas. On April 19, David Kaye, the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression, wrapped up a weeklong fact-finding mission to Japan by expressing “deep and genuine concern” about declining media independence in Asia’s richest democracy. The following day, the Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders lowered Japan’s place in its annual ranking of world press freedom to 72nd out of 180 nations, between Tanzania and Lesotho" And no, this is not whataboutism. This is just a context so to understand that the above turn of events that the OP refers to is not unprecedented in other strong democracies either. Or is Japan an autocracy too?

pmlnr 6y ago
> Or is Japan an autocracy too In this specific case, I'm not certain there is a trivial answer. Having worked for a Japanese company, the unshakable hierarchy is unknown to Western culture.
toyg 6y ago
> is Japan an autocracy too? Ehh... it is a "flawed democracy" in that same index, as you would expect from a country where the same party has ruled almost uninterrupted for 65 years.

arkh 6y ago

Independent press does not exist: - if the money comes from the state they're incentivized to speak good of the state - if the money comes from ads they're bound to report what does not make to many waves - if the money comes from readers, they're going to write articles for better retention / more new subscribers Democracy does not need the press. It needs an informed population which has learned to think critically.

wyldfire 6y ago
> Democracy does not need the press. I don't agree at all. There's numerous instances happening very, very frequently of the press shaping public events sometimes only by their revelation of an ongoing investigation. An informed, critical thinking population won't/can't do investigative work.
jbeam 6y ago
> It needs an informed population which has learned to think critically. How does the population get informed about the government without the press?
oytis 6y ago
As the case of Cambridge Analytica shows most people overestimate their ability to think critically. We do need reputable sources of information, otherwise we're just a manipulable flock.
hedora 6y ago
Independent press would mean that there are many different news organizations under independent control. We used to have that in the US because we used to have and enforce laws against media consolidation.
discreteevent 6y ago
I think a lot of these comments are trivializing the situation in Hungary. The point is that if the government has shut down the last newspaper independent of it (even though maybe not of ads) then they will shut down any public speech independent of it and then you cannot have a population informed about how it is being governed (whatever about being informed about consumer choice which is a bit more trivial)

malechimp 6y ago

Democracy? With guys like Victor Orban? Nope. You think you live in a democracy but it is something else entirely. I'm not playing smart. I'm a Greek myself and our govt is mimicking Orban to a large degree. TBH I'm afraid that democracy is going down the drain for most of EU anyway. The way yellow-vests were treated in "democratic" France (hint: plastic bullets shot at demostrators' eyes) kind of convinced me on that one. As for Greece, well, yeah. You won't find anything but praise for the govt in the mass media. A few fringe ones daring the other side of events survive on readers subscriptions. All tied up in a tightly knitted nexus of political friends, family, friendly businessmen, huge debt (govt party has a massive debt on its own as most mass media also do), ever expanding police-state, religious leaders (Orthodox Christian Church) and God knows whom else. So, anyway, all the best...

sn41 6y ago
This is the current normal in many countries. Actually many of these have been empowered by some kind of internet troll movement. The emergence of such parties is eerily similar - an overwhelming majority who is peeved at some designated and vilified minority getting even minor privileges. Plus a lot of ranting against left liberalism and globalism. They conveniently forget the fact that such egalitarian viewpoints have more or less assured a stable 75 years in recent world history. Nearly a century of peace in large parts of the world - this has been a great achievement unprecedented in the last 500 years. Unfortunately for us, I think since Internet 2.0, this trend has been exacerbated by the echo chambers which constitute most social media.
- Accujack 6y ago
  >Actually many of these have been empowered by some kind of internet troll movement. It's not a "movement". It's information warfare enabled by the fact that most information sources online don't even give lip service to the idea of separating propaganda and manipulation from honest public discussion. The Russians are (obviously) getting very good at this, and other countries like China aren't far behind. Until companies like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and others recognize that protecting public discussion from interference isn't optional, you can expect this to continue.

whack 6y ago

Thank you for the local context. Can you clarify more about the takeover attempt? The article portrays it as a conflict between the site's editor, and the Board President. Can you clarify the government's role in this? Are there any governmental barriers preventing these journalists from forming a new independent news site?

jxf 6y ago

> To put this in context: for imagine the largest, and one of the last remaining independent news site in a country where most of the media is centrally controlled. Criticism of the government in that media is unknown. This site is read by close to half of the online population. The government is clearly irritated by this. Thanks for providing this context to foreigners; I wouldn't have known any of this or been able to succinctly summarize it with some research the way you just did.

edem 6y ago

Hungarian here. It stopped to be a democracy the moment they attained more than 66% of the votes (with gerrymandering of course). They also control the other branches of power. They also control the attorney general who can stop any prosecution against any member of the Fidesz before it starts. They control the media now. The whole system makes me sick. And I'm one of those people who would vote for a paty like Fidesz if it was a regular country (I'm not left wing at all).

old-gregg 6y ago
Can they be voted out in the next election?
- edem 6y ago
  I honestly don't know. We thought we can the last time there was a vote and they won with a strong majority. The real problem here is that there is no good alternative. The left wing parties are a joke at best. I'm kinda torn between all the major parties since I don't believe that any of them would work. That's why I voted for the new kid on the block (Momentum).
  - epicureanideal 6y ago
    That sounds like he's winning legitimately. He may not be the candidate people want, but just from your comment it sounds like he's the best they have.
    - szemet 6y ago
      "Opposition parties are so inept: they could not even operate corruption." (Do not know if it is original or some old joke: I have heard it from hungarian stand-up comedian Tibor Bödőcs - who is btw basically the only comedian left who dare (or talented enough to get away with) criticizing every side of the political spectrum here - nowadays mostly Orbán of course...)
hfsjkfshjk 6y ago

ProAm 6y ago

> But this happening in an EU country, in a democracy. Democracy was a 20th century construct.

jaakl 6y ago
More precise would be: ”idea that democracy is best-for-anyone solution is sooo 20th century”. It is probably best for many, maybe most, but the others need to find their own local best. People can be equal, but history, culture, neighbourhoods etc are not

NicoJuicy 6y ago

The EU is based on democratic principles. Too bad some bad actors ruin or for the rest of us ( I'm not saying the EU is perfect though, just young). I spoke to someone from Hungary and they literally said people voted for Orban because of 1 thing: keep immigrants out.

squarefoot 6y ago
They very likely were exposed to the same kind of anti-immigrants propaganda most governments use against their citizens. It happens pretty much everywhere. Immigrants can't vote, so they're extremely easy to use as scapegoats because they can't fight back politically. Once a government plants in their citizens that immigrants are the root of all evil, they've pretty much won: anything wrong in the country will be attributed to illegal immigrants so that the attention will be taken away from the government. It's the same old trick of blaming a weak minority that cannot defend itself using any legal means, and frankly I find appalling that people still falls for it.

sonotathrowaway 6y ago

Hungary is not considered a liberal democracy, it’s considered an “illiberal democracy”. Orbán has pioneered ways to degrade a liberal democracy to an illiberal one, and is the template many right wing leaders of other countries are in the process of emulating: Bolsonaro, Trump, and Poland, though I believe their strategy has been more concerned with compromising their judicial branch.

d0mine 6y ago

In what sense, news organizations that you've mentioned are "independent"? (if you live outside the bubble, the bias is clear)

syedkarim 6y ago

"Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians will like be the Guardian and the New York Times." Don't forget 444.hu. They are nowhere near as large as Index, but just as outspoken and critical of the government.

billjings 6y ago

Hold on: Hungary is not an autocratic country? Hasn't Fidesz controlled the country for over ten years now? Haven't they amended the constitution? Packed the courts? This is not a topic that is at the top of my mind, so I am not an expert. But Hungary being a democratic society is news to me.

jupp0r 6y ago
You make it sound like being a democracy is a binary decision, when in reality it's a multidimensional spectrum with lots of grey areas at the edges. Just look at the current state of affairs in the US, there are plenty of warning signs. Is it still a democracy? In my mind it is. The other commonality is that both countries chose their autocrat by fair elections.
- adventured 6y ago
  > The other commonality is that both countries chose their autocrat by fair elections. There's almost zero evidence to support the notion that Trump is an autocrat. He's a badly performing political outsider that is about to go down in flames with one of the least successful, least effective Presidencies in US history. He's going to lose by normal democratic means, being voted out of office. His Presidency ultimately isn't going to matter much at all. In the first months Biden will unleash a wave of executive orders, mostly wiping out anything Trump did that the Democrats disliked. He's about to be thrown out of office by a candidate that can barely make it through four minute interviews, a candidate whose prep team has to keep him hidden away and tightly controlled because of obvious severe problems. There is hardly anybody in the establishment in Washington that supports Trump at this point. There is almost nobody in the media / press that supports Trump. The press is never afraid to attack him, they do it 24/7 openly. What autocracy? Trump is closer to a bumbling clown with no business being in politics, than an autocrat. What did Trump do? He built a wall? No he didn't, he didn't build anything. He banned all the Muslims? No he didn't, other previous presidents similarly blocked many of those same nations for security reasons. He shut down all the illegal immigration, and deported a zillion people? No he didn't, Obama deported more people. He radically remade our immigration system? No he didn't. He abolished the ACA? No he didn't. He took control of the military industrial complex levers and launched a bunch of wars? No he didn't. So what did he do? Trump's entire Presidency has only a few signatures to it. He cuts taxes, he was wildly divisive (he raged a lot, tweeted a lot), he conflicted with China a lot, he didn't launch any new wars, he failed over and over again to accomplish much of significance, he fought with the press a lot, and he installed a bunch of federal judges (which is going to be limited by his single term anyway). And then he was gone after a mere four years (his polls are so bad, the Democrats would all have to drop dead of Covid for Trump to win again). So the world is upside down, everything is bad, the US is over, it's an autocratic nightmare, because of this clown that was thrown out in just four years. I call bullshit.

cosmodisk 6y ago

Frankly speaking, each country gets what it deserves. I'm sure there are some Hungarians who are opposed to the current government but majority seem to be just fine with ' It's all Soros' fault' or 'Screw the EU'. Back at home,a few years ago, people decided that it's a good idea to give majority to the party that mainly consists of millionaire farmers, who barely pay minimum wages. And people were stupid enough to say things like: ' they'll increase income for everyone and etc.'. It's like we are walking into some high end spaceship and some guys are concerned where they've left their pitchforks... People also seem to be happy buying some 3rd class newspapers writing crap instead of trying to read at least a bit of investigative journalism. Maybe this is the time where it all goes down to shit for 20-30 years and then it will get better again. Europe especially can't seem to have normal life for too long.

Hamuko 6y ago

>But this happening in an EU country, in a democracy. Not anymore. Freedom House classifies Hungary as a "Transitional or Hybrid Regime".

m0zg 6y ago

> independent news outlet ... New York Times It's not independent, and it's not a news outlet.

pyuser583 6y ago

Maybe it’s because I’m tired, but for a moment I thought we were talking about Hong Kong. If I can’t keep straight in my head which country is having its press shut down, we live in sad times. In America, we don’t have press shut down, as much as it becomes “sponsored.” Someone decides to run it at a loss, or close to one. Quality goes down, advertising goes up, and ideology seeps in. Lots of “small town papers” are just brands managed by conglomerates.