Part I — Situation overview

On 27 June 2026 the new media law entered into force, and the change immediately had a tangible institutional consequence: the Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA — the background institution financing public media and managing its assets) and the mandates of the directors-general of Duna Media Service Provider Zrt. ceased to exist. The announcement was made on Saturday by Zoltán Tarr, the minister responsible for social relations and culture: until the new structure is set up, public media will be run temporarily by the deputy directors-general, then by an arriving interim leader with limited powers. According to press reports the transition may last a few months, until the final selection of the leader is concluded.

An important distinction from the developments of a few days earlier: MIAK’s analysis of 24 June was still about the moment of the law’s adoption, but the concrete institutional consequence of the regulation now in force is a new situation. The precision of the legal frame here is not a formality: the media law was adopted by the National Assembly — not by the government — and the President of the Republic promulgated it; promulgation is not an independent government decision. The Media Council is an autonomous authority, and its transformation is a legislative, not a governmental, competence. Whoever frames the news as a “government decapitation” conflates the branches of power: parliamentary legislation and executive power are not the same.

MIAK’s reading is therefore directed not at the spectacle of the change of leadership, but at the structural question behind it. The independence of public media will not become credible from who happens to sit in the leadership chairs, but from what rules tie their hands. The transitional leadership with limited powers is the system’s most vulnerable moment: this is when the counterweights are weakest, and when the temptation is greatest to replace one-sided capture in one direction with capture in the opposite direction. The real stake is not who leads, but whether public media will finally cease to be spoils redistributed at every change of government.

Part II — Literature foundation

Before turning to MIAK’s concrete proposals, it is worth fixing the interpretive frame in which the question of public-media independence can be placed. According to the propaganda model developed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (an American media scholar and a linguist-public intellectual) in their work Manufacturing Consent (1988), the content of the media is shaped not by individual intentions but by structural factors — chiefly ownership structure and financing dependence; this is a direct argument that the independence of public media must be guaranteed at the institutional, not the personal, level. The book Propaganda (1928) by Edward L. Bernays (the Austrian-American pioneer of public relations), with its concept of the “invisible government”, warned a century ago that the shaping of public opinion is an organised, expert activity — that is, impartiality does not arise on its own. And the work The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) by Shoshana Zuboff (an American social psychologist, professor at Harvard Business School) describes the attention economy of the platform age, in which the commercial news market by itself does not produce a balanced public sphere — this is the present-day argument for the justification of public-service media. The detailed literature treatment — by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures so that the transition of public media leads not to new capture but to durable independence.

3.1 Fixing the room for manoeuvre of the transitional leadership (immediately, until the appointment of the interim leader)

According to MIAK, the powers of the transitional leadership with limited authority must be fixed publicly and itemised: the interim leadership should not be able to take irreversible decisions — it should not terminate or conclude long-term (longer than one year) contracts, should not launch mass redundancies, and should not restructure the news editorial offices until the new, final leadership is set up. This is not the paralysis of operation, but the freezing of the status quo until the legitimate selection of the leader is concluded. In Herman and Chomsky’s structural media model (see 6.4.1) it is precisely such a transitional moment of weak counterweights that is the entry point of ownership-managerial influence. The proposal connects to the logic of Strengthening checks and balances (A6): institutional independence does not depend on the goodwill of the leader, but on the rule that ties their hands.

3.2 Party-neutral selection of the leader based on broad consensus (when the final structure is set up)

The selection of the final public-media leadership should not be a simple-majority, governing-side decision, but a process requiring broad parliamentary consensus — reinforced by an opposition veto or a qualified majority. The composition of the supervisory body (board of trustees) should reflect political and professional diversity, and its members should receive a fixed mandate on a rhythm different from the electoral cycles, so that they are not replaced at every change of government. According to Bernays’s “invisible government” diagnosis (see 6.4.2), the shaping of the public sphere is always in someone’s hands — the only question is whether in transparent, shared, controlled hands. This builds on the principles of KU2 Media-pluralism monitoring and KU5 Cultural participation index and open culture financing: the selection of the leader and the financing should also be rule- and data-driven rather than discretionary.

3.3 Indexed financing and public impartiality indicators (within 12 months)

The financing of public media should arrive by an automatic formula fixed in law and proportionate to gross domestic product (GDP), so that financial room for manoeuvre is not the subject of political bargaining. In parallel, impartiality must be made measurable: quarterly public, methodologically fixed indicators — the uncut airtime allotted to actors, the diversity of the news sources used, the political distribution of those given a voice — should account for the balance. Zuboff’s attention-economy analysis (see 6.4.3) shows why the production of a balanced public sphere cannot be entrusted to the market alone — which is exactly why public-service media must be maintained from a stable, predictable source. The indicators should be curated by an independent research institute, not by public media itself.

The three proposals are bound together by a single principle: the independence of public media is not a personal but an institutional question. The goodwill of the leader is no guarantee; the public, measurable rule that ties their hands is. The transition is the touchstone — if the party-neutral guarantees are fixed now, public media can step out of the spoils logic for good.

Part IV — Expected impacts and risks

Dimension Expected impact Risk
Public sphere / press freedom With party-neutral guarantees, more credible, more balanced public media Capture in the opposite direction: one old one-sidedness replaced by a new one-sidedness
Public money / transparency Indexed financing takes the budget out of political bargaining The transitional leadership could conclude irreversible contracts without control
Institutional independence The broad-consensus selection of the leader gives a stable mandate spanning cycles If the procedure stays simple-majority, the board of trustees becomes the mirror of the government of the day
Workforce / editorial offices Freezing the structure protects editorial continuity Mass redundancies or restructuring during the transition, loss of professional knowledge

The main trade-off is the handling of the transition. The transitional leadership tips to the risk side if its limited powers are not fixed publicly and itemised — then “limited powers” remains an empty formula, and irreversible decisions can be taken even during the few-month transition. The proposal works if the guarantees — a frozen structure, broad-consensus selection of the leader, indexed financing, measurable impartiality — are built in together; if any of them is omitted, the system remains vulnerable. The greatest danger is not inaction but haste: the transition is short, and hasty decisions taken during it have effects for years.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (suggested KPIs)

The suggested performance indicators (KPIs — that is, metrics from which it can be seen whether the measure is successful), which in 6–24 months will show whether the direction is good:

  • Selection procedure for the leader: whether the final public-media leader was chosen with broad parliamentary consensus (with opposition participation) — yes/no, documented.
  • Publicity of impartiality indicators: whether the breakdown of uncut airtime and source diversity is available quarterly — target: continuously from the first quarter (Q1) of 2027.
  • Predictability of financing: whether the public-media budget arrives by a statutorily fixed, GDP-proportionate formula — yes/no.
  • Traceability of transitional decisions: the number of contracts longer than one year concluded by the transitional leadership — suggested target: zero until the new leadership is set up.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message: the entering-into-force transformation of public media will be successful if it creates not a change of leadership but a system of institutional guarantees. MIAK asks the decision-maker to fix the powers of the transitional leadership publicly, to tie the final selection of the leader to a party-neutral, broad-consensus procedure, and to index the financing — and it asks the public to watch not the persons of the leaders but the rules and the measurable indicators. This proposal moves two MIAK foundational values: transparency — because impartiality is only credible if it is measurable in uncut time and source diversity, not voiced as a promise — and ideology-freeness, because the goal is precisely that public media should operate as the captive of no single political side, neither the old nor the new arrangement.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

The public-affairs and liberal-left band (ATV, 24.hu, HVG) approached from the institutional stake: ATV, under the headline “MTVA and the Media Council decapitated too”, highlighted the immediate cessation of the leadership mandates, while 24.hu, with the wording “the deputy directors-general carry out the management tasks”, placed the emphasis on the uncertainty of the transition. HVG 360 a few days earlier had already circled the governance question of the “interim leader with limited powers” — with a “but how?” lead-in — that is, it probed the content of the competence.

The economic band (Portfolio) brought a factual, institutional viewpoint: “a new era may come in public media, the current leaders depart immediately” — concentrating on the content of Zoltán Tarr’s statement, highlighting the temporal limit of the interim leadership. The conservative band (Mandiner) likewise conveyed the fact, with the verbatim content of the ministerial announcement (“the mandates of the directors-general of MTVA and Duna Media Service Provider have ceased”). It is worth noting: on this day the source bands differed more in conveying the fact than in framing it — the substantive interpretive difference (whom it protects, what the stake is) appeared chiefly in the background analyses (HVG 360), not in the news framing.

6.2 Facts and data

  • Entry into force: 27 June 2026 (the law entered into force on this day after promulgation).
  • Ceased mandates: those of the directors-general of MTVA and Duna Media Service Provider Zrt., with immediate effect.
  • Transitional management: the deputy directors-general, then an arriving interim leader with limited powers; the transition is a few months according to press reports.
  • Legal frame: the law was adopted by the National Assembly, the President of the Republic promulgated it; the Media Council is an autonomous authority.

Supplementary public monitoring frameworks that provide a reference point for the methodology of the 5.1 KPIs: the EU Media Pluralism Monitor (the media-pluralism measurement of the Florence research centre), the press-freedom index of Reporters Without Borders, and the public-service governance recommendations of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

6.3 Policy aspects

  • Culture (programme points) — the public-service mission and media pluralism of public media, with the principles of KU2 and KU5;
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the media as a democratic institutional guarantee, with the checks-and-balances logic of A6 and A7;
  • Justice (background material) — the legal status of independent supervisory bodies, the party-neutrality of the appointment procedure;
  • Digitalisation and AI regulation (background material) — the platform-age attention market and the concentration of digital advertising, which re-frame the role of public-service media.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

According to the authors’ propaganda model, the content of the media is shaped not by individual journalistic intentions but by structural factors: ownership structure, advertiser (financing) dependence, and the relationship to the power actors who define the news. In their own wording, the structural factors include “ownership and control, dependence on other major funding sources (notably, advertisers), and mutual interests and relationships between the media and those who make the news”. They stress that their model “describes forces that shape what the media does; it does not imply that any propaganda emanating from the media is always effective” — that is, it is not determinism but a pressure structure. Translated to the transition of Hungarian public media: it is precisely the ownership-managerial and financing channel where new capture can enter — which is why financing must be indexed and the selection of the leader made independent of the government majority (see proposals 3.1 and 3.3).

📖 Source: Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

6.4.2 Edward L. Bernays: Propaganda

Already in 1928 Bernays wrote: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” The image of the “invisible government” is not a conspiracy theory but a sober warning: the shaping of the public sphere always concentrates in someone’s hands. In the case of public media this means that the question is not whether there will be influence, but whether it is in transparent, shared and controlled hands. This is why MIAK proposes the diversity of the board of trustees and the broad-consensus selection of the leader (3.2): the goal is the sharing of influence, not its denial.

📖 Source: Edward L. Bernays: Propaganda

6.4.3 Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Zuboff analyses the platform-age attention economy, in which the incentives of commercial actors shift towards influencing behaviour: “it is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us.” The book’s stake is that a purely market-based, attention-maximising logic does not produce a balanced public sphere — indeed, the profit interest rewards polarising, attention-grabbing content. This is a direct argument for public-service media: if we entrust the news market entirely to commercial and platform logic, balanced information becomes a market failure. Hence MIAK’s proposal for stable, indexed public-media financing and measurable impartiality (3.3) — the public-service function is guaranteed not by the market but by a rule.

📖 Source: Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

6.5 International comparison

The theoretical thesis of the three books appears operationally in several European solutions as well. In Germany the supervisory bodies of the public-service broadcasters (ARD, ZDF) are deliberately diverse in composition — with political, ecclesiastical, trade-union and civil delegates — so that no single camp dominates the leadership; this is the model for the 3.2 board-diversity principle. On the financing side, the British BBC and the earlier Danish model were built on a source separated from the political cycle and fixed for a longer term, which illustrates the logic of 3.3 indexed financing. For making impartiality measurable, the EU media-pluralism monitor provides a methodology: its indicators of ownership concentration, editorial independence and market diversity make visible exactly the structural pressure that Herman and Chomsky write about.

Culture

  • KU2 — Media-pluralism monitoring
  • KU5 — Cultural participation index and open culture financing

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances
  • A7 — Media pluralism as an institutional guarantee

Suggested new programme point: Public-media transitional governance protocol (the public, itemised fixing of the room for manoeuvre of the transitional leadership with limited powers) — for the Culture and Transparency and anti-corruption policy areas.

6.7 Source register

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 28 June 2026 — top-10 topics):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent
  • 📖 Edward L. Bernays: Propaganda
  • 📖 Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Note: the local file path of the book does not appear in the blog’s visible text — only the author and the title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Culture (programme points; programme point ID: KU2, KU5)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6, A7)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 28 June 2026 — topic 2, score: 86/100

Additional public data sources (if used):

  • EU Media Pluralism Monitor (Florence media-pluralism measurement) — methodological frame for the impartiality indicators
  • Reporters Without Borders — press-freedom index
  • European Broadcasting Union (EBU) — public-service governance recommendations

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