Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/hungary/)
Two editors from India and Hungary, respectively, Ritu Kapur and Peter Erdelyi, offer survival tips based on how their outlets have managed to stay afloat in the face of press freedom challenges in backsliding democracies.
Hungarian investigative media outlet Átlátszó and its editor-in-chief, Tamás Bodoky, have become targets in the latest smear campaign by pro-government news outlets, aimed at discrediting what remains of the country’s independent media.
To support our colleagues around the world on the International Day of Democracy, GIJN has rounded up a series of our reporting guides, tip sheets, and webinars — both to define the anti-democratic challenges and to provide tips and tools for digging into authoritarian bad actors and defending against their attacks.
Andras Petho, co-founder of the investigative news outlet Direkt36, offers lessons learned from witnessing first-hand the press crackdown of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Our weekly look at some of the most popular data journalism stories on Twitter examines the logistical Achilles’ heel of the Russian invasion, ongoing gaps in the sanctions of Russian oligarchs, Europe’s selective support for refugees, a historical analysis of Scottish baby names, and a deep dive into how organizations should choose their data visualization color palettes.
On the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 crisis being declared a global pandemic, outlets around the world looked back on how the coronavirus has transformed our lives. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from March 8 to 14 found a comprehensive summary of how the health crisis unfolded in the United States by The Washington Post, and a look at the COVID-19 crisis in Hungary. In this edition, we also feature The Economist’s interactive tool estimating the risk posed by COVID-19 based on a person’s health, a story about the ghost towns in Fukushima by NPR, and an analysis of the future of electric cars by The New York Times.
Last May, Direkt36 published its first story about how the companies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s family were secretly benefiting from projects funded by the government – often paid from the European Union’s budget. Here the reporters break down the five most interesting parts of their reporting.
In Hungary, nonprofit news site Átlátszó has hired a full-time data team to create a wide range of data visualizations and data-driven stories, notably on corruption. Amanda Loviza spoke to the team’s leader Attila Bátorfy about his plans to raise the bar for data journalism in Hungary.
In 2014, Hungarian investigative journalist András Pethő wrote an exposé about a series of expensive overseas business trips taken by the chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orban for the popular website Origo.hu. Within days of the story’s publication, Origo’s editor in chief, Gergo Saling, resigned – apparently due to political pressure on Origo’s parent company, Magyar Telecom. Pethő and much of the rest of the site’s news staff quit soon afterwards in solidarity. The walkout led to much scrutiny of Origo and Hungary’s press freedom climate, both in Hungary and internationally.
Global press freedom has continued its decline, now at its lowest point in 13 years in 2016 due to unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies, intensified crackdowns by authoritarian states, and moves by Russia and China to increase their influence beyond their borders, according to Freedom of the Press 2017, the latest edition of Freedom House’s annual report on media freedom worldwide.