An employee of the German public service media launched an attack in a letter against the Budapester Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper published in Hungary, dealing with Hungarian affairs: he visited German companies that advertise in the newspaper and asked them about their relationship with the paper, as well as why they support a "far-right" newspaper .
Magyar Nemzet reached the founder of the Budapester Zeitung, Jan Mainka, by phone. The editor-in-chief views the letter as "a serious attack on Hungarian press freedom".
They are well aware that ad revenue is vital. If, on the other hand, this channel is terminated or partially dried up, our existence will be endangered - Jan Mainka, the founder of the Budapester Zeitung, answered the question why the Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) employee could attack the weekly newspaper that has been operating in Hungary for more than twenty years. They also learned from the German journalist that no lawsuit was filed in the case, however, in a letter written by a lawyer, they drew RBB's attention to the legal consequences, because it is "defamation".
Jan Mainka made public on her social media page the letter that RBB/ARD public television sent to several companies that advertise on the pages of the Budapester Zeitung. In the letter, they wrote that they would like to deal with the weekly newspaper published in Hungary in one of their shows, and in this regard they addressed six questions to the recipients.
I believe that these questions only served the purpose of wrapping up the third, most important question: why they support a far-right tabloid. I'm not even sure if they actually planned to broadcast, maybe they just used it as an excuse to send the letter with that particular question. Which is actually not even a question, but rather a "poetic suggestion" or simply the transmission of information. Moreover, the transfer of the information that my newspaper is far-right - explained the German journalist when asked by Híradó.hu.
Jan Mainka , the letter writer may have thought that if he labeled the Budapester Zeitung as far-right, the companies would "run away" from them, and then complete isolation would lead to the termination of economic relations.
In Germany, the journalist continued, such accusations are particularly dangerous, because if someone is labeled with the term radical right, it means that you should not have any relationship with that person.
"Since there is no legal way to demolish the Budapester Zeitung, they chose self-judgment to destroy the newspaper, " stated the German journalist. However, the letter writer did not achieve his goals: Jan Mainka pointed out that it was not by chance that the weekly newspaper's advertisers informed him that they had received such a letter. He added: the advertising companies know that neither he nor the paper is far-right.
The full article can be read here.
Source: Hungarian Nation
(Cover image: budapester.hu/screen image )
