Orbán’s media slop spread poison beyond Hungary. Luckily, fearless, fact-based reporting endures | Beata Balogová

Across Europe, public service journalism is a shield for democracy. But we have to decide if we want to fight for its survival For 16 years, Viktor Orbán’s government poured millions of euros of public money into thinktanks, institutions and media outlets sympathetic to its illiberal views – not only in Hungary but beyond its borders. In Slovakia, for instance, where a sizeable Hungarian minority lives, Budapest is alleged to have sent millions of euros to favoured media organisations. Many independent newsrooms survived on only a fraction of what these outlets received. These government-fattened channels were never truly called “media” by Hungarian colleagues, nor their content producers “journalists”. If Hungarians were asked to recall ever hearing from these outlets a piercing human story, an investigation exposing abuse of power or a facts-based analysis that brought clarity to chaos, they would search their memory in vain. What they do drag in their wake is a long list of people whose lives they embittered – or outright destroyed. Critics of Orbán’s regime were turned into terrorists, sexual predators, paedophiles, thieves, tax fraudsters, domestic abusers. O