Thousands of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of Hungary’s public media corporation on Saturday to demonstrate against what they say is an entrenched propaganda network operated by the nationalist government at taxpayer expense.
The protest was organized by Hungary’s most prominent opposition figure, Péter Magyar, and his upstart TISZA party, which has emerged in recent months as the most serious political challenge for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán since he took power nearly 15 years ago.
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Both Hungarian and international observers have long warned that press freedom in the Central European country was under threat, and that Orbán’s party has used media buyouts by government-connected business tycoons to build a pro-government media empire.
It would be difficult to compete with established news sources, and especially difficult to fund, to do something like that on a dime, much less the question of growing the audience. Subversion of established sources of information is extremely powerful.