Peter Magyar asked the rally's participants to boycott MTVA as well as Hir TV, TV2, news portals Origo and Index, daily Magyar Nemzet and the Metropol newspaper, and "every tentacle" of the "Rogan propaganda", referring to cabinet office head Antal Rogan.

He called for the elimination of the "propaganda machine" and an objective news broadcast by the public service media.

Magyar demanded that news channel M1 report about the demonstration in a live broadcast or, if it missed to do so, show "unedited footage" of what happened at the event.



He also demanded the dismissal of MTVA's chief executive Daniel Papp, relieving members of media authority MNHH from their positions and new regulations as a deterrent "for press organs that disseminate lies".

Magyar said how MTVA was operating calling itself public service media was "a global scandal". "How come that the leader of the biggest opposition party is still not allowed in to the public service media after 210 days"?

The Tisza leader said that at Hungary's next general election the current regime "must be brought to its knees", adding that Saturday's demonstration was only the first step towards the goal of dismantling it.

"If elected into power, the Tisza Party will eliminate corruption, Hungary will join the European Prosecutor's Office, cut the 27 percent VAT on healthy foods to 5 percent and bring home the 8,000 billion forints worth of EU funding Hungary is entitled to from Brussels," said Magyar.



Speaking at the event, Zoltan Tarr, an MEP of the party, said that a public service media providing authentic and objective information to citizens is a pillar of democracy and if it is hurt, democracy is hurt as well.

At the end of the demonstration, Magyar demanded that he could present the party's 16-point petition in a live broadcast. After a couple of minutes he told the rally's participants that he was told by MTVA's leaders that it was not possible, however the public service media would carry reports about the demonstration in its news programmes and would welcome representatives of the opposition parties in its television and radio programmes.

Magyar, wrapping up the event, invited participants to attend the party's rally to be held on October 23 at Bem Square.


 

MTVA: Public media rejects violent demands

The Media Services Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA) issues the following statement in connection with today's demonstration organised by the Tisza Party in front of the building of the public media.

The public media rejects the violent demands which, in defiance of the legal regulations, repeatedly attempt to interfere in the operation of the public media, editorial freedom and programme structure, and to establish political control over the public media. This also contravenes European Union rules.

The public media rejects the atrocities against MTVA employees. It rejects the insults, the threats. It rejects the continued humiliation of public media and other media workers.

Contrary to the allegations of Peter Magyar, MEP, who is facing criminal prosecution, in the year following the 2022 parliamentary elections alone (between April 3, 2022 and April 2, 2023), the public media invited representatives of opposition parties to their TV and radio programmes a total of 6,764 times. Of these, they accepted a total of 161 invitations and did not appear in 6,603 cases.

The specific invitations were as follows:

Invitations in total, on public TV channel M1 "Ma reggel" (This morning) and Kossuth Radio's "Jo reggelt, Magyarorszag!" (Good Morning, Hungary!) programmes, broken down by parties:

DK (Democratic Coalition) received 888 invitations, accepted 1, did not appear 887 times and participated 1 time,
Jobbik received 718 invitations, accepted 16, did not appear 702 times and participated 16 times,
MSZP received 2964 invitations, accepted 4, did not appear 2960 times, participated 4 times,
Momentum received 920 invitations, accepted 10, did not appear 910 times, participated 10 times,
Our Homeland Movement (MHM) received 26 invitations, accepted 26, attended all, participated 26 times,
Dialogue (Parbeszed) received 666 invitations, accepted 0, failed to appear 666 times, participated 0 times,
LMP received 82 invitations, accepted 60 invitations, failed to appear 22 times, attended 60 times,
ISZOMM received 36 invitations, accepted 28 invitations, did not appear 8 times, and participated 28 times,
The Solution Movement received 12 invitations, accepted 12 invitations, attended all, participated 12 times,
The Two-Tailed Dog Party received 12 invitations, accepted 2 invitations, did not attend 10 times, attended 2 times,
The Everybody's Hungary People's Party (MMN) received 10 invitations, accepted 2 invitations, failed to appear 8 times, attended 2 times,
The Movement of the People's Party (NPM) received 430 invitations, accepted 0 invitations, failed to attend 430 times, attended 0 times.

The information provided can be supported by written documents.

In contrast to the above, Peter Magyar lied in his speech when he claimed that the representatives of opposition parties were not invited by the public media to their programmes, or not in sufficient numbers.

The Hungarian public media, as the public media of a Member State of the European Union and as a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), considers it unacceptable for any political party to exert pressure or attempt to exert pressure on any channel of the public media or on the editors or editorial staff of any media outlet by any means whatsoever.

Source: 
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.

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