The Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced on Tuesday that the broadcasting of “propaganda” on public television in Hungary has ended, following the change in leadership of the institution that manages public radio and television services.
“A historic day. Today, the broadcasting of propaganda in public media has ended. They lied day and night, they lied on all frequencies. Now it’s over“, wrote Magyar on Facebook.
Subsequently, the prime minister announced that M1, the main public news station in Hungary, will symbolically resume its broadcast at 19:56, a reference to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956: “for now, without news programs, only with films,” conveyed Péter Magyar.
What happened
According to Euronews, the public television and radio in Hungary have interrupted their broadcast on Tuesday, following the installation of an interim leadership.
The message was displayed on the screen: “The public television cannot lie. We apologize for doing so“.
The new leadership announced that the institution will be reorganized to become an independent and credible public service. Several managers and journalists were immediately dismissed, and the Hungarian press reported that some of them were escorted out of the building by security agents.
Why was the public television reorganized?
The public television in Hungary has been criticized in recent years by opposition parties and international organizations, who have accused it of favoring the governments led by Viktor Orbán.
After the April elections, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded that the news programs of the public television disproportionately supported the messages of the former power and offered very little space to the voices of the opposition, appreciating that the institution did not ensure fair conditions for the political actors in the electoral campaign.