In Western Europe, the press is not independent, they want to turn it into a political weapon, and in fact it already partially works as such, said the State Secretary responsible for international communication and relations of the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office at the Press Freedom in Hungary 2023 conference in Budapest.
Zoltán Kovács spoke at the event of the Nézőpont Institute and the Media Viewer Center about the fact that in Western Europe - for example in Great Britain, Germany, Finland or Sweden - governments are under press pressure, under pressure from the media acting as a "branch of power".
Although in the West this is called an independent press, in fact this press is only independent of public opinion, because there the press and politics do not represent what people want, what the public actually thinks, but the "flowing money" for which some political intervention is expected, said the state secretary.
Zoltán Kovács said that these Western media hide behind big slogans and topics, but in reality they do not want to deal with the given topic, because the important thing is not the content, but the political tool, for which they use the topic and the press.
Hungary has one of the cleanest regulatory systems in Europe, but no Western media will admit this, no matter how hard they prove it to them, stated the state secretary.
Levente Bánk Boros, director of analysis at the Nézőpont Institute, emphasized that "technically, legally and in terms of content, there is freedom of the press in Hungary." He supported this claim with ten facts, quoting the findings of the institute's study entitled Growing diversity - 10 facts about the Hungarian media.
Levente Boros Bánk also emphasized that Hungarian journalists can write freely on any topic and about anyone without taboos, and the independence of the Hungarian media authority is strong even compared to EU practice.
He also reported that government information and access to data of public interest works in Hungary in accordance with the practice of EU member states, the government operates in a completely transparent manner, and, he said, the public media in Hungary, like in several EU countries, prefers the current government. He reminded me about the latter finding
to the relevant 2021 decision of the Constitutional Court, which stated that the public media fulfills the criterion of balanced information.
Sámuel Ágoston Mráz, head of the Nézőpont Institute, spoke about the fact that anyone can easily access all news sources in Hungary, i.e. the technical possibility for citizens to reach the media. In addition, he added, access to news sources is better than the European Union average.
In his presentation, Balázs Kohut, the leading economic analyst of the Nézőpont Institute, talked about the opportunity for the media to make a profit, and they have been able to live with this in recent years, and it is not only companies that sympathize with the government.
In Hungary, media critical of the government are also profitable, he stated, adding: between 2015 and 2021, the income of media critical of the government increased from HUF 54.6 billion to HUF 85.5 billion, and in 2021 the companies publishing critical government media achieved a positive profit after tax of HUF 32 billion .
Source and full article: vasarnap.hu
Featured image: Indymédia
