The Hungarian National Media Association was shocked to note, and on behalf of the entire journalism profession, condemns that the ezalényeg.hu news site harasses citizens by telephone with campaign questions set up as public opinion polls.

This action is an obvious abuse of the already existing practice, during which serious companies carry out a serious survey on behalf of a press product, and the results of these are processed in a serious article by the ordering media workshop, and then presented to the public. The procedure of ezalenyeg.hu only reminds of this practice in its form, so in reality it is nothing more than an attempt to cover it up with the cover story of journalism, but in fact it is an undisguised sensationalist.

With these mood-inducing tools, the news portal wants to break into the political opinion bubble of the opposition voters, and from that circle it tries to recruit readers on the one hand, and collect personal data on the other. As unbelievable as it may be for the owners and editors of ezalényeg.hu, the press in Hungary is subject to rules.

Every media school graduate should know the relevant regulation, the essence of which is the purpose of the press product

"the delivery of content consisting of text or images to the public
for the purpose of information, entertainment or education, in printed format or via an electronic communication network".

The bottom line is that the portfolio of a press product that apostrophizes itself as a news portal cannot fit into the portfolio of conducting a direct political campaign with manipulative questions, not only because this undermines the credibility it may have set on its banner, but which is certainly expected, but also because it misleads its potential readers. and the interviewees as well.

The experiment of ezalényeg.hu is not simply unprecedented in the Hungarian and perhaps international press, but also simply unacceptable, given that the news portal's procedure also raises the suspicion that the collected personal data may also be transmitted illegally.

We believe that the role of the press is to inform. We believe that this cannot be confused with manipulative telephone campaigns. We would like to believe that journalism is the profession of educated, prepared people who know the professional basics, regardless of their worldview. The Hungarian National Media Association, on behalf of the entire journalist community, requests the procedure of the mentioned page.

Now that's the point.

MTI-OS