* Per András Petho
This is a strange time to be a Hungarian journalist.
Working in a small Central European country, we were not used to receiving international attention. In recent years, however, we have been frequently approached by journalists from developed democracies, including some professionals working for prestigious US outlets, who have asked our advice. They wanted to know if we had any tips on how to deal with the growing autocratic and anti-media tendencies in their own countries.
These journalists came to us after learning how Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom the right-wing leader Steve Bannon once called “Trump before Trump”repressed the free press and other democratic institutions.
In a recent speech at the conference of the cpac (Conservative Political Action Conference) in Budapest, Orbán spoke candidly about how media reshaping has been one of the keys to his power. “Have your own media”, recommended to the public formed mainly by American conservatives, adding that programs like Tucker Carlson’s in Fox “must be broadcast day and night”.
I felt Orbán’s repression on my own skin. 8 years ago, the originalthe popular news site I was working for at the time, suffered intense political pressure because of denunciations I wrote about a powerful government figure. My editor and I were told by representatives of the vehicle’s owners, a telecommunications company that had close ties to the government, that we should slow down reporting. They also asked for some articles to be removed from the site.
Not wanting to work under censorship, I went out and opened the Direkt36a non-profit investigative reporting company with 2 former colleagues.
Thanks to our dedicated community and the generosity of some international foundations, the Direkt36 it is now one of the few establishments in Hungary that is not under government influence and is independent of other political or commercial interests.
At the same time, we also became targets of regular attacks by the rulers and their allies. For example, pro-government propaganda vehicles often falsely claim that we are foreign agents. Two of our reporters were watched with a spyware known as Pegasus, a cybernetic weapon used by the Hungarian government.
Despite my experience, I don’t think I could give particularly useful tips to journalists who came to me. I know of no magic weapon against autocratic repression. What I can do is share common mistakes that we can all avoid so as not to make our own situation worse.
One is, as a journalist, when you’re attacked by political forces, it’s tempting to become the center of the story. I recommend not doing this. While it is important to record the facts and explain to the public that media capture is a well-known strategy in dismantling democratic institutions, focusing too much on this role, no matter how noble, will create a narrative that you personally fight certain forces. Nothing would make autocrats happier, as it would reinforce their argument that journalists are persecuting them.
The other advice concerns attacks not directly against you, the journalist. But against people and organizations that represent democratic values that we took for granted (such as minority rights, for example). When you see this, it may seem urgent to use the platforms you have and speak out in a forceful way. Again, I don’t recommend doing this.
Being vocal will almost certainly make you more visible in the field (and generate some social media following), but what you gain from raising your profile can cost you in terms of your credibility as a reporter. If you act like a defender, you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re seen as such. Of course, you can become popular in certain media, but in others, they will be skeptical of your work and this will limit your audience.
I’m not saying that no one should speak up. On the contrary, I hope that many people – human rights defenders, advocacy groups or simply ordinary social media users – will do so. But if you’re in the news business, the biggest contribution you can make to saving democracies is doing your job, and doing it well. The need for in-depth and complete reporting is greater than ever. We are living in a historic moment in which tectonic changes occur in almost all spheres of society. It is our duty to record these events as accurately and thoroughly as possible.
There is another reason to focus all our journalistic energies on reporting. Our information ecosystem is noisy, confusing and polluted with propaganda and disinformation. It is much more difficult to impact public discourse now than it was in the seemingly very distant past, when media rather than technology companies controlled the flow of information. But ambitious reporting can have a powerful impact even in this environment. I’ve seen this first-hand as the proud participant in some of the biggest international journalism collaborations of recent years, such as the Panama Papers and Pegasus. These stories dominated global public discourse for weeks, sparked positive change in several countries, and, if only briefly, put autocratic governments like Hungary’s on the defensive.
These experiences taught me that there is still no better way to break through the noise than to tell a good story. We must focus on it as if our survival depended on it. Because, in some places, it depends.
Andras Petho, 2020 Nieman Fellow, is co-founder and editor of Direkt36, an investigative journalism center in Hungary. Previously, he was a senior editor at the news site Origo.
Text translated by Fernanda Bassi. Read the original at English.
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