The Hungarian oligarchy has thus far been focused on controlling media at home. Now, they move on to Europe. As Hungarian elections are fast approaching, political observers and media experts are on the lookout for new media acquisitions by oligarchs close to Fidesz, the right-wing political party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. This has been…
The Kyiv Post was shut down by its owner, apparently following pressures from authorities. But its journalists do not seem to give up. On 8 November 2021 the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s flagship English newspaper that was founded more than 25 years ago, unexpectedly folded. The last article on the newspaper’s website said that it ceased…
Back in 2006, Bulgaria and France had something important in common. Both countries were ranked 35th on a list of 169 nations in the annual media freedom index of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based NGO. Yet, over the course of the next 14 years, Bulgaria’s free media index plummeted. Since 2018, the country…
Political enemies of Denmark’s public broadcaster DR are hatching plans to crop the station’s budget. A bellicose commercial media industry is going to bat for them. A “TV hit factory.” This is how Gerard Gilbert, a television writer for the British newspaper The Independent, in May 2012 described the Danish public broadcaster DR, producer of…
Recent attacks from right-wing politicians on Austria’s popular public broadcaster are raising alarming questions about the future of independent journalism in the country. An Austrian court has recently decided that showing the finger to Heinz-Christian Strache, Austria’s vice-chancellor, is not slander. Leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), an overtly anti-Islam party, Mr Strache sued…
The management of RTVS, Slovakia’s public broadcaster, is poised to turn the station into a political enterprise. The recent cancellation of the station’s sole investigative journalism program is part of that strategy. In early 2017, Matica Slovenska, a state-financed scientific and cultural institution in Slovakia, uploaded an online video linking the existence of the Slovak…
The appointment of a high government official in the body that governs Estonia’s public broadcaster is opening a can of worms. He promises to keep his two hats apart – but some people don’t trust him. On 3 May 2017, Riigikogu, Estonia’s parliament, appointed Paavo Nogene to the post of Chancellor of the Ministry of…
Critics of taxpayer funding for public media are on the rise; and for good reason. It’s time for public media to take their audience seriously. Sieglinde Baumert, 46, from the small town of Geisa, in the German region of Thuringia, last year became the first person ever sent behind bars for failing to pay the…
Media and journalism are changing fast and so should the media research agenda. Analyzing the role of social media in the recent elections in America, Farhad Manjoo wrote in the New York Times on 16 November 2016 that widespread misinformation online was a “primary factor in the race’s outcome.” I would add that some mainstream media have…
Built through an international assistance program, for many years Kosovo’s public broadcaster received kudos for its editorial coverage. Local politicians have spoiled that. The building of the Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) in Kosovo’s capital city of Pristina, and the private home of its Director General were targets of two separate hand grenade attacks in…