Steven N.Independent MP Ákos Hadházy organized a protest in front of state broadcaster MTVA’s building on Kunigunda Road on Friday evening to call for ending news censorship in Hungary’s public media and the firing of its “news falsifying” director, Dániel Papp, reports Média1.
While state-run news channel M1 and its associated news site, hirado.hu, did report on the protest, Média1 noted that these reports failed to mention that the goal of the protest was for public media to be run according to professional standards. Instead, in reporting the event Hungarian state media gave the impression that it was a demonstration in support of Hungary’s teachers.
In brief reports, M1 provided a live display of the demonstration taking place in front of its building, and also repeated the 9-point demand formulated by teachers and students to improve the situation in education, which had been read out loud at the protest.
However, according to Média1, these reports conveniently omitted the fact that Hadházy had announced the protest because, he believes, “state media should be given back to the public” and CEO Dániel Papp should be replaced.
While teacher representatives did indeed speak out in protest of their low wages and for better educational conditions at the demonstration, it was just as much an event in support of the freedom of Hungarian public media. Teachers had been invited to the event because, according to Hadházy, public television had failed to report on their demands in the past.
Hadházy also demanded the end of government-sponsored advertising, on which the representative from Budapest’s Zugló district has also submitted a bill in Parliament. [HVG, Média1]
