Mérték Media Ombudsman: How did the online media present Soros’ response to the government’s claims about the “Soros Plan”?

The government held a so-called national consultation to find out what the Hungarian public thinks about the “Soros Plan.” In a statement released on 20 November 2017, George Soros denied the claims in the government’s consultation questionnaire. The sixth analysis of the Mérték Media Ombudsman reviewed the coverage of this issue by nine Hungarian online […]

Mérték Media Ombudsman – How the media reacted to Ukrainian language law

On 5 September 2017 the Ukrainian parliament adopted a new education law. Among other things, the act specifies that the language of instruction in schools must be the national language, that is Ukrainian, though some exceptions are allowed. Although in principle the goal is to bolster the position of the Ukrainian language while limiting the […]

Mérték Media Ombudsman – Neo-Nazi violence in the US

On 12 August 2017, a far-right rally — the organisers of which also included neo-Nazi groups – was held in the US city of Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in violent incidents between the far-right demonstrators and counter-demonstrators. U.S. President Donald Trump did not expressly condemn the racist extremists, and instead referred to violence from “both […]

State advertising 2006-2017

Mérték Média Monitor has been analysing the changes in state advertising spending for years. Our regularly published Soft Censorship report reviews the developments of the foregoing year, but it is also important to take a look at the impact of state advertising on the media market situation from a wider angle, as a long-term process. […]

AN ILLIBERAL STATE IN THE HEART OF EUROPE

Between 2010 and 2014, an ‘illiberal state’ was being built in Hungary. In line with prime minister’s announcement on the subject, from 2014 we have been offered a perspective on how an actual, consolidated illiberal democracy operates. Hungary remains part of the European Union (EU), but its actions contradict the fundamental principles of the EU. […]

Debate on Hungary in the European Parliament

Hungarian press coverage between 2017.04.26. és 2017.04.28. Mérték Media Monitor invited Publicus Institute to conduct a qualitative analysis on how the European Parliament’s debate on Hungary has been reported on by the most read, most watched and most important Hungarian news media. We monitored 718 articles in total produced by four online and three printed […]

Soft Censorship in Hungary in 2016: When Propaganda Rules Public Discourse

Liquidated Diversity Népszabadság terminated, Class FM removed from its frequency, TV2 turned into a character assassination machinery, the public media are aggressively disseminating anti-migrant propaganda – as far as the eye can see, the ruins of a media that have seen better days. 2016 was the year when there was no election campaign, and this offered an opportunity to […]