By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST, April 16 (Reuters) – Over 90 journalists from Hungarian state news agency MTI have demanded the immediate restoration of impartial news coverage following election winner Peter Magyar’s pledge to shake up state media, according to a letter obtained by Reuters.
Magyar, whose centre-right TISZA party scored a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections, said his government will suspend the news broadcast of public state media until unbiased news coverage can be ensured as part of wider moves to restore press freedoms.
Critics at home and abroad have said Hungarian state media news broadcasts became a government mouthpiece under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose government gradually shaped public media to its mould after being voted into office in 2010.
“Our goal is that the editorial autonomy of the national news agency should be restored,” the journalists wrote in the letter dated April 15. “So that again we could decide which events we report about, and how the coverage should go, based on our own professional principles.”
The letter, first reported by news site HVG, was addressed to Anita Altorjai, CEO of Duna Médiaszolgáltató Zrt, the holding that groups all state TV, MTI and radio channels, as well as Daniel Papp, CEO of MTVA, which is responsible for content production.
The two bodies did not immediately respond to Reuters questions seeking comment.
‘MAJOR CHALLENGE’
Magyar said his government, with its strong supermajority in parliament, would pass a new media law, set up a new media authority and “set up the professional conditions for state media to actually do what it is meant to do.”
“Every Hungarian deserves a public service media that broadcasts the truth,” Magyar told Kossuth state radio on Wednesday, where Orban had been a weekly guest while opposition politicians rarely got invited.
He is expected to set up his government by the middle of next month.
Observers and media analysts say the task is a major challenge that could shape Hungary’s media landscape for a long time to come.
“The new government has a major opportunity to begin addressing Hungary’s rights crisis by restoring the rule of law and reinvigorating democratic institutions,” Lydia Gall, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement this week.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
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