Keyword – independence

Dési, János:

Mercenaries

By the early 1980s, it became evident that the press had gained some freedom – though ‘some freedom’ is not real freedom. The Hungarian Socialist Workers Party still exerted pressure on the media until the end of the decade, but the attitude was more relaxed and the media became more diverse. There were attempts to propagate official policies that were based on apparent lies, but the media in general were less ready to accept these fabrications. Some topics were rigorously banned, others less so, but journalists working in the state media did not need to adhere to orders any more, and the policy of editorial offices became diverse. The general public appreciated efforts to convey the truth. By contrast, after Fidesz came into power in 2010, a new semi-authoritarian regime began to take shape, and a whole new generation of journalists working for the pro-government press is now trained to create upfront deception – and there is nothing to support the view that they would try to change this situation. Tiny scraps of remaining freedom may explain this, because those who are not willing to comply and do not care much about financial gains still have a chance to find a job in the few remaining independent media outlets.

Keywords: censorship, courage, editorial freedom, freedom of the press, independence, party governance, party state, political propaganda

Német, Szilvi:

”I can’t even fathom what a liberal fact-checker is”

This paper studies Hungary’s first dedicated fact-checking initiative, Lakmusz, in order to assess the public’s reactions to this project. It is based on a quantitative and content analysis of readers’ comments (N = 2,546) on two Facebook pages – those of Lakmusz and of 444.hu – where fact-checking articles by Lakmusz were posted simultaneously. Its findings suggest that the two audiences commonly challenged journalists’ verdicts on epistemological grounds; however, politicised views on their practices were more pronounced in the comment section of the fact-checking portal. Our findings also indicate that the acceptance of the genre improves when fact-checks are an integral part of the mainstream news agenda. On the downside, fact-checking articles also seem to provoke polarised political attitudes among news commenters being “in the know.”

Keywords: content analysis, fact-checking, independence, journalistic bias, mainstream media, readers’ comments