The crisis in Hungarian public service broadcasting – margin notes on two reports
The crisis in Hungarian public service broadcasting – margin notes on two reports

Summary/Abstract: When writing about Hungarian media for non-Hungarian audiences, I have always felt compelled to follow a two-step procedure. One has firstly to describe the Hungarian media situation because it cannot be expected that the basics are known abroad. And then, only after one has outlined the similarities and differences to – say – western European media structures, can one start with the analysis. This time, good fortune has offered a different solution to this problem. At the beginning of 2001, a delegation of the International Federation of Journalists visited Hungary and subsequently published a highly critical analysis of the political and professional crisis of public broadcasting in Hungary, entitled «Television on the Brink». A few weeks later another organisation, the so-called British Helsinki Human Rights Group (not related to the International Helsinki Federation) also sent a delegation to Hungary and published a report. In the following pages, I will use quotations from these reports to describe the media situation in Hungary. Commenting upon these quotations, I will try to highlight some underlying factors and also to answer the question: Why is there an ongoing media crisis in an otherwise « Musterknabe » EU accession candidate country?

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