The publisher of Telex is sitting on hundreds of millions, while their donors are unknown, writes the Mandiner.
Although the publishing company is still not owned by the editors, there are successful financial years behind the medium that talks about oppression and persecution.
Independent content, transparent operation, solidarity with other bodies and journalists - among other things, you can read about this in Telex.hu's code of ethics and conduct, which was published by the newspaper's managers in connection with the launch of the portal on October 2, 2020. In the meantime, of course, it turned out that the former indexers are continuing where they left off when they felt that the "conditions for independent newspaper production" were no longer given to them: they are building a context.
If we only read Telex every day, we would easily get the impression of Hungary that not only civilians, but also journalists are being made impossible here.
The independent media is on the verge of extinction - read in several articles , served in a prominent place: the Orbán system is moving forward on Putin's road with floor gas. In comparison, the Hungarian media reality is that Telex's publisher, Van Másik Kft., is sitting on hundreds of millions of forints. This is the second year.
312 last year (this is the first full business year of the online paper - ed.); and before that, the publisher's after-tax profit was four hundred and sixteen million forints, which is not a bad result at all for a green field media market investment, it was revealed in the report of Média1.hu the other day. The latter adds that the result of 312 million was achieved with a net sales revenue of four hundred and thirty-seven million forints. But we must not forget the funds, which rose from 448 million to a whopping 655 million last year, and the non-refundable subsidies that have already been accounted for: 678 million came to Telex - based on their self-report - from "reader donations". It is not known exactly how the latter amount was made up, since their financial report states: "Among the grants, there was no individual transaction of such a size that the value would have reached 0.5 percent of all grants." (This means almost three and a half million forints.)
According to information from Mandiner.hu, the tension in the editorial office is becoming more and more perceptible,
the background of which may be to a large extent the numbers detailed above. More precisely, the relative opacity of financing and the question of company ownership. When the paper was launched, the managers, such as content development manager Veronika Munk, founding editor-in-chief, company owner and managing director Márton Kárpáti, promised their employees that they would become owners of Van Másik Kft. In their appeal published after their departure, the former indexers said that Telex would be a paper where "the majority of the owners of the newspaper are the impartial journalists and editors themselves, who guarantee independence".
Compared to this, the owner of the publishing house with a cash balance of several hundred million is still the founder, that is, Márton Kárpáti, who owns 100 percent of the business shares on the balance sheet date (this means December 31, 2021 - ed.), according to the financial report. It is true that Dull Szabolcs, the former editor-in-chief of Index.hu, was also listed among the persons entitled to representation, shortly before his dismissal, Kárpáti's brother András Kárpáti Kárpátok Kommunikációs Ügynökség Kft., which was the owner of the domain at the time, was registered.
Márton Kárpáti explained this maneuver to Média1 by saying that Telex.hu had to be bought from a third party, and since the name of the company of the departing indexers had already been leaked to the press at the time of the purchase, they did not want this to be included in the price negotiations prior to the purchase of the domain. raise the price, that is why Kárpátok Kommunikációs Ügynökség Kft. originally bought the domain. Van Másik Kft. later took over the ending, this company became the publisher.
Can the situation be resolved? What about subsidies?
Mandiner sent a letter to the newspaper's management to find out why the portal's employees have not yet become owners in Van Másik Kft.
We also inquired about the extent to which they consider it financially and professionally justifiable that they still ask for the readers' support to maintain the portal in addition to the hundreds of millions of results recorded in the past 2 years.
By the time our article was published, they had not responded.
Source and full article: mandiner.hu
Opening image: tamogatas.telex.hu
