
Editorial board of Index and more than 70 staff members resign - pabo
https://index.hu/english/2020/07/24/editorial_board_of_index_resigns/
======
throwaway-34512
To put this in context: for imagine the largest, and one of the last remaining
independent news site in a country where most of the media is centrally
controlled. Criticism of the government in that media is unknown. This site is
read by close to half of the online population. The government is clearly
irritated by this.

This site was Index, in Hungary. The editorial board resigning is a response
of the takeover attempt from government sources.

Going forward, the largest, independent news outlet accessible to Hungarians
will like be the Guardian and the New York Times.

If this was happening in an autocratic country, we’d just shrug. But this
happening in an EU country, in a democracy.

The question begs itself: can a democracy with no independent, local press be
considered a democracy still?

~~~
malechimp
Democracy? With guys like Victor Orban? Nope. You think you live in a
democracy but it is something else entirely.

I'm not playing smart. I'm a Greek myself and our govt is mimicking Orban to a
large degree. TBH I'm afraid that democracy is going down the drain for most
of EU anyway. The way yellow-vests were treated in "democratic" France (hint:
plastic bullets shot at demostrators' eyes) kind of convinced me on that one.
As for Greece, well, yeah. You won't find anything but praise for the govt in
the mass media. A few fringe ones daring the other side of events survive on
readers subscriptions. All tied up in a tightly knitted nexus of political
friends, family, friendly businessmen, huge debt (govt party has a massive
debt on its own as most mass media also do), ever expanding police-state,
religious leaders (Orthodox Christian Church) and God knows whom else.

So, anyway, all the best...

~~~
peruvian
I mean, we (US) helped set the stage for these kind of governments in Greece a
few decades ago:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_junta#American_influence...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_junta#American_influence_in_Greece)

~~~
john-shaffer
1949 is not what most people would consider "a few decades ago".

~~~
peruvian
Greece's junta government lasted until '74\. That's still ~50 years ago but
it's not like this stuff goes away immediately.

I'm from South America where the US experimented with setting up dictatorships
after WWII as well, and the effects are still felt today.

~~~
Jenz
> I'm from South America where the US experimented with setting up
> dictatorships after WWII

Source?

~~~
munk-a
Here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America)

Though I'm pretty amazed it isn't just common knowledge - America has a long
history of fixing democracies... It takes working democracies and replaces
them with military dictatorships.

~~~
Jenz
Thanks.

“Common knowledge” of history (ancient and recent) differs vastly from country
to country. In Norway, we basically just learn of USA that it’s the country
that turns the tide of war whenever it enters; for which we learn of two
occasions: 1st and 2nd WW; not much else.

Pardon my english.

~~~
kebman
I'm really sorry if that is all you got out of Norwegian history classes.
Though I might add that what you get out of it is indeed highly dependent on
_who_ you get as a history teacher, because the books themselves are
appalling. I would know. I'm an adjunkt (official Norwegian teaching title).

Personally I think I'm quite lucky. I got a self-appointed, and rather proud
Marxist as a history teacher in upper secondary school. He solemnly declared
that, while this was indeed his conviction, he would not let it _colour_ his
classes. Then he went on to give us college lectures about WWI and the Russian
Revolution, because he trusted us to be smart enough to understand it anyway.

I shall never forget these amazing classes, but this style of teaching didn't
sit well with the, shall we say, less aware pupils in the class, who promptly
wrote up a complaint against his use of difficult to understand concepts and
use of academic language.

After a meeting between us, him and the principal, he declared that he was
very disappointed with us, and that—despite the authors retracting the
complaint—he would not continue as a teacher for our class anymore. Then he
donned his motorcycle gear and rode off on his Harley. I'm telling you! You
can't make this shit up! :D

The next day we got a brand new history teacher. Instead of _teaching,_ he
would merely read up passages from the pre-approved history book, in the most
passive and uninspired way possible. Then he would give us the lamest of lame
assignements such as, "describe who was the prime minister of Great Britain
during World War II and why," and other such mindblowingly boring stuff.
Meanwhile the Marxist teacher would tell us interesting tidbits about
Churchill and his role in the sinking of the USS Lusitania, and fascinating
stuff like "contra-factual hypothesis", and so on.

You're probably wondering how I feel about Marxism now. Well, let's just say
that I think it's a failed philosophy. But the stories that extremely Marxist
teacher shared with us, were so good and so captivating, that they have simply
stuck with me and everyone who were lucky enough to have this true rebell as a
history teacher.

Anway, if you're still not satisfied, and just want bloody good "history
lessons," then I can highly recommend the podcast _Blueprint for Armageddon,_
about WWI as told by Dan Carlin.

~~~
Jenz
> I can highly recommend the podcast Blueprint for Armageddon, about WWI as
> told by Dan Carlin.

I’ve been reading so much english lately, that I’m losing grasp of my native
norwegian. (Yet I can’t seem to get my syntax quite right.) This is
frightening and also the reason I’m always trying to find norwegian books on
whatever subject I’m interested in — which isn’t always easy...

~~~
kebman
Don't worry about it. As long as you avoid obvious anglisisms, you should be
fine. Considering how much Norse has affected English, it's really just going
full circle. And if you're ever stuck, there's always "Det norske akademis
ordbok"[1] (a Norwegian dictionary). :) It's particularly good because it
includes etymology.

[1]: [https://naob.no/](https://naob.no/)

------
sz4kerto
Index has been a very rare example of an actually profitable online news site;
it's been the oldest and most popular online media. It is worthy for the
ruling party to simply destroy this value (similarly to what has happened to
other big players) because they have enough public money for them anyway.

A while ago various oligarchs have bought almost all of the Hungarian media,
and then donated (for free) them to a single 'non-profit' organization. Now
the local newspapers looked like this before the last general election:

[https://external-
content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...](https://external-
content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.keleten.hu%2Fwp-
content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F05%2FMegyei-lapok-
online-M%25C3%25A9sz%25C3%25A1ros-L%25C5%2591rinc.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1)

(Title: 'Vote for Fidesz')

~~~
lazyjones
> _A while ago various oligarchs have bought almost all of the Hungarian
> media_

Let's not pretend this didn't already happen in the US, UK and all of Western
Europe decades ago. Using derogatory terms like "oligarchs" doesn't change the
story.

~~~
simias
You're not wrong, but the big difference is who the oligarchs answer to. For
instance most big French news outlet belong to various rich people, but
they're all somewhat independent and are not watchdogs for the authorities.
That might still cause significant conflicts of interest but it's not directly
on the government's leash.

Meanwhile if you look at, say, the Echo of Moscow, a popular Russian radio,
the main shareholder is Gazprom, the natural gaz company that's state-owned
and has extremely close ties with the political power.

That's always the problem with this "whataboutism", it's true that there are
many problems with western democracy and freedom of information but it's
dishonest to say that it's the same thing. It's really not. I've been learning
Russian for a few years and I read (slowly) quite a lot of Russian news and
it's really unlike anything I've seen in France or the USA for instance.

~~~
lazyjones
> _You 're not wrong, but the big difference is who the oligarchs answer to.
> For instance most big French news outlet belong to various rich people, but
> they're all somewhat independent and are not watchdogs for the authorities._

Oligarchs don't answer to anyone, they just have their own interests - which
in Hungary they express by aligning with the government, while elsewhere it's
fine to align with one side like the media in the US do. It's not like the
quality of papers like the oligarch-owned WaPo is any better, they just had to
settle a major defamation lawsuit due to their "progressive" propaganda.

[https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-washington-post-to-
pa...](https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-washington-post-to-pay-
covington-student-nick-sandmann-after-250-million-lawsuit/)

------
nabla9
For EU to take action against Hungary you need all other members to agree.
Unfortunately Poland and Hungary are backing each other up and veto any action
against the other.

~~~
cultus
The EU needs to get either more federal or break up.

~~~
wyoh
I hope not for this future, we don't need a bigger leviathan which is
disconnected from local population.

~~~
ed_balls
I'm afraid EU is a necessary evil. Local population delegated some powers to
nation states, otherwise the would cease to exist. How are you gonna stand up
to China, India or US in the future?

------
haunter
Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria. Disgrace of the EU. Wonder how long this can go on.
Probably forever because the whole leadership of the EU is incredibly weak and
divided.

~~~
the_duke
With the UK leaving, Poland and Hungary and others sliding into very
uncomfortable territory from a democracy perspective, and far right sentiments
growing even in the western countries, the EU is heading towards a pretty
dramatic identity crisis.

A big issue is the lack of tools to take meaningful measures in this, or
similar cases.

There is the suspension clause [1], but using it is difficult, and could
eventually lead to multiple additional departures. See this (older) article
for some background [2].

The most viable (medium-term) way forward for me is to transform the current
EU back into a a looser, mostly economy focused association. With a subgroup
of states pursuing stronger, value-based integration.

I think that multiple world-powers are pretty happy about this development.
Russia obviously wants to gain back influence and would love to destabalize
the EU. They are funneling money to EU sceptical parties all over Europe,
including supporting Brexit. They also have "web brigades" for online
propaganda campaigns. [3]

But I also think the US grew unhappy about the economic (and partially
political) strength of the EU in the mid 2000s, where we saw not only the Iraq
fallout, but also the Euro established as a important currency. In the Obama
years relations cooled off considerably. I don't think the US would be unhappy
about a EU that is not broken, but weaker and more susceptible to influence.
(the failure of TTIP is an interesting data point here)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_Eur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_European_Union)

[2] [https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-
hungarys-...](https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-can-still-block-hungarys-
orban-veto-on-polish-pis-sanctions/)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades)

~~~
boienoien
> With the UK leaving

What do you mean "leaving"? The UK ceased to be part of the EU six months ago.

~~~
Macha
The UK's departure 6 months ago is a milestone that's more political than
actual. During the transitional period of the withdrawal agreement, the UK is
effectively a non-voting member this year as it has no option to opt of EU
regulations or budget contributions until the end of this period. Other parts
of their departure, like the Northern Ireland backstop have their own
conditions before the UK can adjust them.

Describing the departure as in progress rather than done is very much
accurate.

------
pabo
The largest Hungarian news outlet is crushed to ground amid political
pressure.

See background and previous events
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23932073)

------
onetimemanytime
\--The government can send their version IRS every other day to find something
wrong in applying loosely defined laws. Crippling fines.

\--No government advertising, your competitors can make millions from them.

\--Frozen out of any government contracts for businesses owned by the media
owner.

\--Pressure for companies not to advertise on your media. Might not even need
a wink and a nod, "smart" companies know it.

So next time a smart-ass says but "USA too" they need to look at these
examples. Of course they are worse cases, you can get jailed or killed by a
state-sanctioned mobster.

~~~
linuxftw
> The government can send their version IRS every other day to find something
> wrong in applying loosely defined laws. Crippling fines.

You mean like the Obama administration? [1]

All these things you describe, describe governments in general. Some group
achieves political power and wields the government in benefit of their friends
and in detriment of their enemies.

1: [https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-
for-...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-
aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups)

~~~
ausbah
>It later emerged that liberal groups had been targeted, too, although in
smaller numbers.

~~~
auganov
> It later emerged that liberal groups had been targeted, too, although in
> smaller numbers.

Yes, because if you look at the targeting criteria they've obviously been
targeted less. Just going off wikipedia[0]:

    
    
      - referenced words such as "Tea Party", "Patriots", or "9/12 Project", "progressive,"   "occupy," "Israel," "open source software," "medical marijuana" and "occupied territory advocacy" in the case file;
      - outlined issues in the application that included government spending, government debt, or taxes;
      - involved advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live";
      - had statements in the case file that criticized how the country is being run;
      - advocated education about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights;
      - were focused on challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—known by many as Obamacare;
      - questioned the integrity of federal elections.
    

Whether the keyword "progressive" was really being used in the same manner has
been called into question too. Again quoting off wikipedia:

    
    
      On June 27, 2013, responding to letters from Rep. Sander Levin, the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, Inspector General J. Russell George's office released a letter to Levin about the scrutiny of groups with "progressive" in their names. Contradicting earlier claims of George's office, the letter acknowledged that he knew that the word "progressive" had appeared in IRS screening documents. However, he said that the "Progressives" criteria was on a part of the "Be On the Look Out" (BOLO) spreadsheet labeled "Historical", and, unlike other BOLO entries, did not say how to refer flagged cases. While he had many sources confirming the use of "Tea Party" and related criteria described in the report, including employee interviews and e-mails, he found no indication in any of those other materials that "Progressives" was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention. The letter further stated that out of the 20 groups applying for tax-exempt status whose names contained "progress" or "progressive", 6 had been chosen for more scrutiny as compared to all of the 292 groups applying for tax-exempt status whose names contained "tea party", "patriot", or "9/12".
    

And on top of that applications were on hold for 2 years (!) for some
organizations with conservative keywords. While liberal organizations were
being processed in weeks. No liberal organization, even those subject to extra
screening, was put on hold like this.

Also it doesn't seem like there have been any major lawsuits over this by
liberal groups. Conservative groups (total of 469 in 2 lawsuits) have sued and
settled, with IRS acknowledging misconduct.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)

~~~
linuxftw
We'll never see real change in the US because each party has insulated
themselves from any information that might be damaging to their own party.

They're seriously about to vote for a guy that voted for the Iraq war and the
Wall St. Bailouts. I don't expect stuff like this to even register with most.
I don't think they can internalize the information.

------
harrydehal
60 Minutes had a great episode on the state of politics and populism in
Hungary last week.

"We do not want to be diverse": Why Hungary is paying its citizens to start
families

[https://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/M777NaE_R1H9_e4sn...](https://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/M777NaE_R1H9_e4sndefiqKgyy4UgkLV/-we-
do-not-want-to-be-diverse-why-hungary-is-paying-its-citizens-to-start-
families/)

------
edem
Do you know what's the worst of all of this? It's that less than 40% of the
populace is supporthing this government and most of those people are either
paid down or outright intimidated by them.

Yet somehow through the use of gerrymandering, extortion, and other shady
maneuvers they managed to maintain a 66%+ majority which is enough for them to
control everything.

This is an autocracy, there is no question about it. The problem is that
whenever the sanctions come it will punish the general populace, not the mafia
which is what you call the Hungarian government.

------
jakub_g
Tangentially related: in Poland, the so called "good change" (conservative
party) fired or made resign dozens of journalists in public TV and radio over
last 4 years, with the culmination two months ago, where hit-parade results
were "censored" after an anti-gov song won the charts [1].

So many people were fired or left that basically a whole new crowdfounded
internet radio has started broadcasting this month, featuring many of them.

The gov is thinking out loud about 'repolonization' of all private media,
citing they are all pro-German, but they have a problem as the main one they
dislike (TVN) is US-owned in fact, and Trump-led US is the only country that
is not our political enemy yet.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-52721152](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52721152)

The difference with Hungary though is that this month's political elections
showed a huge divide in Poland (51:49), and this 49% of people are really sick
of the ruling party.

~~~
omega3
You seem to be forgetting these ones which are owned by German capital:

RMF - biggest radio station, second biggest is owned by French capital

onet & interia - (biggest?) online portals

Fakt - biggest daily newspaper

Newsweek - biggest weekly newspaper

~~~
morsch
> Fakt - biggest daily newspaper

A bit of context: Fakt is a tabloid owned by the same company that also owns
Bild Zeitung -- the biggest daily newspaper (air quotes) in Germany, and
producing the same kind of journalism (air quotes).

Today's front pages:
[https://imgur.com/a/BZ1DOBx](https://imgur.com/a/BZ1DOBx)

Bild Zeitung and its owner are staunchly conservative and recently very
critical of Angela Merkel (when they aren't talking about sports or tits or
celebrity gossip); ie. they are positioned at or beyond the very right edge of
the German conservative party -- like the government of Poland, so I'd expect
them to get along just fine for the most part.

------
bandris
Germany is silent as Hungary recently saved the German military industry by
placing the largest order it ever received from outside. (Since WWII)

Russia is a friend of Orbán as the country pledged to spend 10% of its GDP for
the next 25 years on Russian built nuclear power plants.

China likes Orbán as Hungarian taxpayers are paying for part of the new China-
EU rail that goes through the country.

This scandal will fade away, but "illiberal" (quasi dictatorship) countries
are more and more common. The new normal. As world leaders like to do business
with them, they will stay.

------
tzfld
Wondering, how viable would be a new portal hiring all the resigned staff.

------
tome
Somewhat naive question: can they/will they move to a different country that
respects press freedom better? Perhaps working in Hungary is essential for
them to carry out their job properly.

~~~
saithound
Foreign media has very limited legal rights compared to local media.

Employees of a website operating from abroad would not be able to access the
Parliament building, buildings of state or local government bodies. Moreover,
heads of national institutions, government officials, executives of state-
owned and government-owned companies, and persons performing official and
public duties are allowed to ignore requests for information, data or comments
from the foreign press, but not from the Hungarian press.

If the government could interfere with the operation of press based in
Hungary, they'll have a much easier time messing with the operation of
nominally-foreign press.

------
timruffles
Principled - bravo!

------
blub
I haven't seen any comments defending Hungary or Orban and such unanimous
opinions make me wonder, especially when someone's enjoying popular support in
their home country.

Doesn't Orban have any redeeming qualities? I seem to remember that he was one
of the young hopes after Hungary turned its back to communism. How did he
become an autocrat, as claimed here by some?

There's an interesting book called "Populism and the culture wars" by Frank
Furedi. I have only managed to read a couple of chapters, but it paints quite
a different picture of a fight between cosmopolitan elites and traditionalist
Hungary. So far it has not addressed whether Orban is corrupt, but it does
argue that it's legitimate to reject anti-national, anti-traditionalist values
coming from Brussels.

Another short book that tries to explain the difference between Western and
Eastern Europe is "After Europe" by Krastev. He's clearly writing from a
liberal perspective, but identifies globalization, migration, economic
insecurity and faceless Brussels politics as the main reasons behind the
Eastern rejection of European values.

------
magwas
Meanwhile: after the EU budget talk all representatives of the dictatorship
boasted that they could avoid the provision which ties the budget to rule of
law.

Basically they were proud that they won't have to be lawful.

And the EU just let them.

~~~
phtrivier
There is another interpretation floating around: the deal language is reported
to be very vague, and apparently, the only thing agreed is that the EU will
soon _decide_ on the case against Poland (which would act as "prior" for the
Hungarian case, in general.)

Clearly, Poland and Hungary have bought some time during the negotiations. But
once the budget and recovery plan are formally approved, I would not be
surprised if there were... suprises on this front.

Still. The EU has no armed forced or obvious legal levy to condemn a
democratically elected government of a sovereign state to... respect
democracy.

I suspect it's not going to last forever, but that's the sad state at the
moment.

~~~
magwas
"democratically elected"??? It is not true. They oppress opposition and lie to
people. They did not need to cheat in the day of election, as they cheated
before. Gerrymandering, fining parties to death, buying people in other
parties, making mainstream media unreachable for opposition, changing laws to
make sure no one can outvote them, and this could be continued through pages.
They have stolen a huge part of the previous EU budget, in plainly criminal
ways. Why did the EU gave them more money with a licence to steal?

~~~
phtrivier
I was refering to their initial elections:

I don't remember that Duda's first election at the time caused any trouble (it
was a defeat of the the incumbent)
[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/duda-wins-polands-
pre...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/duda-wins-polands-presidential-
election-150525164751445.html)

Also Orban's initial election was a surprise, but not undemocratic for what I
know (I remember there was a number of scandal about oponents before.)

What happenned after the elections, of course, is a different thing...

