Hungary’s new Parliament has amended the Media Act at the initiative of the Tisza Party. In line with Péter Magyar and his party’s election pledge, the senior officials heading the bodies and authorities that have until now managed and regulated the Hungarian media will be recalled, and their successors selected through open calls for applications. The Media Services and Support Trust Fund (MTVA) and Duna Media Service will be abolished and replaced by new organisations. The newly established Independent Public Media Board will oversee the independence and financial management of public service media, while the amendment to the Media Act will also establish a Press Fund to support Hungary’s independent media outlets.
The Community of Independent Local Newspapers (Fülke), which currently brings together six regional publishers and eight newsrooms across Hungary, welcomes the change, its objectives and its overall direction. At the same time, we believe that journalism in Hungary’s regions, and the role and operation of independent local media outlets, cannot be ignored. We are therefore issuing the following statement.
The current situation
For the first time in sixteen years, we have an opportunity to discuss not only the operation of state-funded public service media, but also the state of the Hungarian public sphere as a whole, of which the regional press is a crucial part.
Journalism in Hungary’s regions is in crisis in several respects. There are very few communities where residents do not have only limited access to the reliable and comprehensive news and information that sustain local democracy. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Hungarian society lives in areas that are news deserts.
This crisis is the combined result of several factors. These include the crisis of traditional news media and the disappearance of local news channels – the dismantling of market diversity – which are linked to brutal political interference in news production, the systematic dissemination of state-sponsored disinformation, the extreme centralisation of local media funding and its control along party-political lines, and the transformation of municipal media into propaganda outlets, as we have experienced during the sixteen years of the System of National Cooperation, or NER.
The crisis in journalism is particularly severe because, with the exception of barely eight to ten cities with county rights where members of the Community of Independent Local Newspapers (Fülke) are present, and a handful of other smaller and larger towns where an independent local publication or an uncompromising freelance journalist or correspondent still operates, the disappearance of journalistic investigation and reporting has led to a complete loss of scrutiny over local institutions and local political and public affairs, including municipalities, public institutions, local businesses and political parties.
If there is no one to ask questions, no one to investigate what happens to public money and no one to present differing points of view, local public life gradually becomes opaque. This is precisely what has happened over the past sixteen years. It has also had deeper social consequences: trust in the media in Hungary has fallen to the lowest level in the European Union, as a direct consequence of centrally orchestrated information chaos.
In this situation, it is particularly important that the Act on Media Services and Mass Communication adopted today is concerned not only with the operation of public service media, but also with the challenges facing the local press.
Independent local media are few and far between in Hungary’s regions
Today, Hungary has barely a dozen independent local newsrooms with their own journalists and publishers. These include the members of the Community of Independent Local Newspapers, Fülke: Borsod24 in Miskolc, Debreciner, KecsUP Hírek in Kecskemét, Szabad Pécs, Szabolcs24 in Nyíregyháza, Szegeder, Szol24 in Szolnok and Veszprém Kukac.
Since the Fülke association was founded in 2025, we have been working together to find solutions that will enable us to build a sustainable model for local journalism over the long term, with continuous joint development as our shared objective.
As small newsrooms, we survived the past period only with immense difficulty, while the NER eliminated the free advertising market and reduced domestic grant schemes available to critical journalism to virtually nothing. We have therefore financed our core operations primarily through international grants, supplemented to a lesser extent by support from local communities and subscription schemes, and only marginally by commercial revenue.
To put this into figures, the combined annual budget of Fülke’s eight newsrooms in 2025 barely approached HUF 200 million. This covers the work of our journalists, the small administrative teams employed by our publishers and the technical infrastructure essential to our operations, even though some of our newsrooms do not have offices of their own.
For our continued operation, however, the current one-sided funding model is no longer sustainable. Funding for our core operations is not guaranteed even for 2026. The next generation of journalists is another unresolved issue, as fewer and fewer people choose journalism as a profession under such uncertain conditions. Despite all these difficulties, we still reach approximately 2.5 million people directly through our online platforms every month.
What does the Act address, and what does it leave unmentioned?
The Act adopted today refers to media pluralism, freedom of the press and independent media. Its explanatory memorandum even specifically states that the Press Fund is intended to support press outlets practising reliable media provision and ethical journalism, as well as underfunded traditional media providers and print and electronic content providers.
The Act is therefore an important step towards transforming the media system. From a local perspective, however, it contains several significant shortcomings. It provides neither a dedicated programme nor ring-fenced funding for the local and regional press, creating a risk that support will primarily go to national outlets with stronger market positions.
Nor does it address the problem of news deserts: areas where independent local media no longer exist and the only information available is party propaganda funded by local authorities – if even that. The Act also suggests that the funding system may primarily be based on financing projects, while the greatest challenge facing regional newsrooms is often maintaining their core operations, from journalists’ salaries to infrastructure costs.
It remains an open question whether grant assessments will be made public, whether applicants will have access to an appeals procedure, and what safeguards will prevent future political or institutional interference. If the genuine objective is to establish media pluralism, then the crisis facing journalism in Hungary’s regions must be addressed separately and specifically.
International examples show that workable models exist. In the Nordic countries, one of the principal aims of press subsidy systems is to sustain outlets that are weaker in market terms but provide public-interest content of importance to political and geographical diversity.
The French model also promotes research and development to help overcome the challenges of the digital and ecological transitions, while encouraging and supporting the emergence of new actors. Austria likewise operates a legally regulated system of press subsidies whose objectives, in addition to diversity, place particular emphasis on journalism training and the promotion of reading.
In European countries where such public funds exist, one of the criteria used when awarding support is precisely the extent to which a newsroom contributes to the diversity of local public life and the functioning of the democratic public sphere.
We are ready to be partners
Fülke can serve as a strong, independent and organised channel to the public in Hungary’s regions, committed to reliable information, access to news and professional standards. We therefore intend to participate as a partner, in a spirit of cooperation, in the public debate on renewing media services.
As independent newsrooms, we possess practical knowledge of the obstacles facing local journalism, the resources required for its operation, and the conditions under which free, sustainable local media serving the public interest can operate over the long term.
We support the promotion of pluralism of opinion, democratic public opinion and the rule of law. We also support the implementation at local level of all the principles set out in the Public Service Charter, including action against fake news and disinformation, a commitment to factual and multifaceted reporting, and the promotion of ethical and independent journalism.
We are both partners and stakeholders in ensuring the smooth functioning of the communications market, protecting the interests of communications service providers and users, and establishing fair and effective competition. We are also committed to developing a transparent grant system within the Press Fund for media outlets operating in Hungary’s regions in accordance with the standards of ethical journalism.
In our view, the current reform of the public media system established after 2010 cannot end with the mere institutional reorganisation of central bodies. One of the most important measures of democratic change will be whether the conditions necessary for reliable media provision and ethical journalism can be created in those towns, cities and regions where genuine media pluralism has disappeared or been significantly diminished over the past decade and a half.
Signatories: Borsod24 in Miskolc, Debreciner in Debrecen, KecsUP Hírek in Kecskemét, Szabad Pécs in Pécs, Szabolcs24 in Nyíregyháza, Szegeder in Szeged, Szol24 in Szolnok and Veszprém Kukac in Veszprém.
