This story was published by the Hungarian investigative journalism non-profit, Atlatszo. An edited version was published as part of a partnership with Global Voices.
Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of Atlatszo, told Media1 that he believes there is a coordinated campaign to attack the investigative nonprofit from actors close to Hungary’s ruling party Fidesz, mirroring the autocratic methods used in Putin’s Russia.
Bodoky has also been a member of the newly established Integrity Authority’s anti-corruption working group since December 2022. The Integrity Authority was formed after the European Commission required Hungary to commit to fighting corruption and the waste of public money, in order to continue receiving EU funds.
The government-affiliated civil organization CÖF (Civil Cooperation Forum), attacked the opposition through posters. CÖF operates with money from the state-owned gambling service provider Szerencsejáték Zrt. CÖF held a press conference on January 12, 2023, where a spokesperson said that Átlátszó could pose a national security risk by receiving financial support from foreign partners.
The press conference occurred after an article with similar sentiment appeared in Magyar Nemzet, a newspaper belonging to KESMA, a media conglomerate controlled by the ruling party.
KESMA (Közép-Európai Sajtó és Média Alapítvány or Central European Press and Media Foundation) is a Hungarian foundation established in 2018, which controls many of the country’s media outlets, ensuring their loyalty to the ruling party Fidesz, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Its assets consist of cable news TV channels, radio stations, internet news portals, newspapers, and magazines with a joint estimated value of over USD 100 million at the time of its founding. At the time, its estimated annual profit was over USD 22.5 million, made mostly through government advertisments.
The claim about the alleged national security risk has since been blown up one after the other by various media outlets close to Fidesz, including the state media service provider and the publicly funded hirado.hu.
An analysis by the International Press Institute revealed more details about the smear campaign:
These texts about Átlátszó’s non-profit funding model included allegations that Átlátszó was receiving ‘Judas money’ and being a ‘criminal association’ involved in treason and anti-national activities. In a second defamatory article in Magyar Nemzet, Bodoky was directly referred to as a liar and a ‘national traitor.’
🇭🇺#Hungary: Investigative media outlet @Atlatszo and its editor-in-chief, @bodoky, became the target of the latest smear campaign in pro-government news outlets aimed at discrediting what remains of the country’s independent media. IPI analysis 👇https://t.co/dLvgYRk5uN pic.twitter.com/e4WAjE9Cbv
— IPI – The Global Network for Independent Media (@globalfreemedia) January 24, 2023
Since last year, there have been numerous attacks against independent media that receive funding from abroad from government-affiliated newspapers. Earlier, PestiSrácok and several other media, for example, attacked Telex for receiving funding from the United States for its start-up academy.
The publicly-funded Fidesz media network has also thrown around the term “dollar media” and, in order to discredit the independent media, is constantly trying to maintain the false impression that there are moral issues with receiving either funding or investment from abroad.