Part I — Situation overview

On the afternoon of Friday 4 September 2026 the Prime Minister announced that, on the instruction of the Finance Minister, the chief executive of the company publishing the paper Mandiner — who was also the portal’s online editor-in-chief — had been removed, and that state financing of the paper would cease from that day. The ownership background of the publisher, Mandiner Novum Nonprofit Zrt., has changed several times in recent years: the paper moved from under the umbrella of the former media holding to a public-interest asset management foundation, and after the latter ceased to exist on 31 August, the exercise of state ownership rights passed to the Ministry of Finance. Publication of the printed weekly had already ceased in July, and sixty people were given notice at the company in June; last year the paper received state advertising worth some 390 million forints. A day earlier, on 3 September, Duna Médiaszolgáltató Zrt., which operates the public media, relieved the director of the M5 cultural channel of his duties. The public media rejected in a statement that it had acted for political reasons: according to their communication, the person concerned had repeatedly breached the chief executive’s instruction issued in July and the Principles of Public Service News Provision, had received both verbal and written warnings, but had not availed himself of the opportunity to correct course. An investigation was therefore launched, and a decision on his employment is expected once the investigation is closed. His current affairs programme had been taken off the screen by the public media the previous day, on the grounds that the choice of topic in an earlier episode had not met content and professional expectations. The Media Association protested against the step and asked for a review of the decision and for an independent professional investigation.

All this is happening in the middle of a longer institutional restructuring. Act XXI of 2026 amended Act CLXXXV of 2010 on media services and mass communication, and created the Independent Public Media Board while abolishing the former Public Service Public Foundation — expressly with the statutory aim of institutionally protecting the independence of the public service media. The amendment did not create a new media act: it retained the institution of the Media Council, while partly returning to a board-of-trustees logic in the supervision of the public media. Three members of the body are nominated by the governing party’s parliamentary groups and three by those of the opposition. On 2 September the National Assembly’s culture committee again failed to support the three nominees of the opposition parties, while the three media-profession and the three governing-party nominees went through. The committee’s governing-party deputy chair then indicated that the body could be constituted with six members as well, and that if the opposition parties continued not to put forward nominees it considered acceptable, “in the next step this possibility opens up for the media profession”. Portfolio’s analysis and a professional observation quoted by Mandiner pointed concurrently to the fact that the wording of the act is narrower than that: the possibility of media-profession nomination opens up if one of the sides does not put forward a nominee — not if it does put forward nominees but the committee does not support them.

MIAK’s reading: this day is a test of MIAK’s principle of ideological neutrality, and the answer has to be the same as the one MIAK would have given between 2010 and 2026. The dismissals took place formally in the exercise of ownership rights — the head of a state-owned publisher may be replaced by the entity exercising ownership rights — and this is legally a different category from official action against the press. The institutional guarantee of media pluralism, however, does not depend on the lawfulness of the ownership act but on how easily the government of the day can take editorial personnel decisions. If the structure is unchanged and only the direction turns around, then the system waits intact for the next change of government. The risk of a truncated body shows the same pattern at the institutional level: a guarantee organ that can be set up even without its own guarantee character formally exists, but functionally it is not what it was meant to be.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

The interpretive frame is given by three sources. Alexis de Tocqueville (French political thinker, analyst of American democracy in the 1830s), in the chapter on press freedom in Democracy in America, begins with the confession that he supports press freedom not out of enthusiasm but from the memory of the evils it prevents — and then states the proposition that matters most from the point of view of the present case: he found no tenable intermediate position between complete independence and entire subjection. Spin Dictators by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman (economist and political scientist respectively, researchers of modern, non-violent autocracies) describes how power today typically does not resort to bans but steers the public sphere through ownership and financing channels — critical actors are bought up or pushed to the margins, while the appearance of a free press is maintained. Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (economist and linguist-social critic respectively, creators of the propaganda model) describes the same mechanism as a system of filters in which ownership and the source of financing are the first two — that is, editorial direction is often shaped not by instruction but by economic dependence. The three sources together lead to the same place: the question of media independence depends not on intentions but on how ownership and financial channels are regulated. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

📖 Source: Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America; Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators; Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. None of them aims to overrule individual personnel decisions: deciding employment law and ownership questions is not MIAK’s task. The proposals concern what all three cases have in common — the absence of a rule.

3.1 Pre-established grounds for dismissal and mandatory written reasons at state media companies (within 90 days)

For the dismissal of the heads of state-owned media undertakings, the entity exercising ownership rights should lay down pre-established, exhaustive grounds — for example breach of law, conduct endangering the company’s finances, documented repeated breach of editorial principles — and every dismissal should be accompanied by written reasons, published at the same time as the decision, naming which ground applies and on what facts. The statement of reasons should not contain personal data beyond what is necessary to understand the decision. The regulation should come with a route of legal remedy: the person concerned should be able to ask for judicial review of the decision as regards whether the ground for dismissal exists. The essence of the proposal is not to take away the owner’s powers, but to require that the exercise of those powers be verifiable after the fact. This is a joint concretisation of MIAK’s programme points A7 (Media pluralism as an institutional guarantee) and A6 (Strengthening checks and balances).

3.2 Rule-based state media financing and a public advertising register (from the start of the 2027 budget year)

For the distribution of state advertising and media support spending, a set of criteria announced in advance should be drawn up: a rule based on reach data, target group and measurable efficiency indicators, which does not take content considerations into account. A public register of the distribution should be published quarterly: which publisher received how much, on what legal title. Ending the financing should likewise be tied to a rule — with a predetermined notice period and reasons — so that turning off the money tap is not a matter of an announcement. The practical reason for this is the financing filter of the propaganda model (see 6.4.3): withdrawing advertising revenue is as much an editorial intervention as an instruction is, it merely leaves no trace in the files. The proposal is the media market application of programme points KU2 (Media pluralism monitoring) and KU5 (Cultural participation index and open culture financing).

3.3 Preventing the truncated operation of the public media board (before the body is constituted)

In setting up the Independent Public Media Board, MIAK proposes that the possibility of constituting it with six members be treated not as an ordinary but as an expressly transitional solution. The body should begin work, but a mandatory re-nomination cycle of no more than six months should be written into the regulation for filling the vacant seats. Until the full complement is reached, the body should take no irreversible decision — in particular it should neither issue nor close a call for the post of chief executive. In addition, the question of legal interpretation raised by several professional commentators has to be clarified: the wording of the act in force ties the possibility of media-profession nomination to one of the sides not putting forward a nominee, not to the committee not supporting the nominees put forward. If the legislator’s intention is different, that has to be settled by amending the act, not by interpretation. The proposal is connected to programme points A6 (Strengthening checks and balances) and A9 (Spin dictatorship prevention index).

The three proposals are bound together by a single principle: the structure matters more than the personnel. The quality of a media system is decided not by who is sitting in the chairs now, but by how easily they can be replaced — and by whether the reasons for the replacement can be checked afterwards. Tocqueville’s proposition (see 6.4.1) is the most precise warning here: the intermediate position is not stable. Either rules bind ownership and financing powers, or sooner or later those powers move in the direction of complete influence — regardless of who exercises them.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Media pluralism Pre-established grounds for dismissal and a public advertising register substantially reduce the informal channels of ownership and financial influence The regulation may become formal if the grounds are drafted too broadly (“breach of professional expectations” on its own covers anything)
Use of public money Tying advertising distribution to measurable criteria makes market distortion transparent, and makes practice comparable across years Distribution based on reach data strengthens the large portals; smaller, regional actors require a separate consideration
Institutional trust If the present government voluntarily binds its own hands, that is the strongest proof of credibility in media policy The absence of regulation, by contrast, sets a precedent: the next government will use the same instrument in the opposite direction
Employment security The route of legal remedy makes the position predictable for editorial leaders Judicial review may drag on, and in practice cannot restore the relationship of trust

The main question for consideration is the relationship between ownership powers and editorial independence. At a state-owned media undertaking the owner has substantive rights — this cannot be disputed either legally or economically. Nor does the proposal do so: it requires that the exercise of those powers have written reasons and be open to review. The system tips to the risk side if a general ground allowing a content-based assessment remains among the grounds for dismissal — because then the regulation merely adds a documentation burden without providing protection. The other sensitive point is the indicator for advertising distribution: a purely reach-based model strengthens concentration, which works precisely against pluralism. That is why an annual, public concentration indicator is also proposed alongside the register, showing the combined share of the largest beneficiaries of state media spending.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

The performance indicators (KPIs) below are proposals, not government decisions — MIAK considers them suitable for judging, in 12 and 24 months’ time, what has changed substantively:

  • The proportion of reasoned dismissals: what percentage of leadership dismissals carried out at state media companies were accompanied by public written reasons naming the ground. Suggested target: 100 per cent.
  • The concentration of state media spending: the combined share of the three largest beneficiaries in annual state advertising expenditure. The direction of the indicator matters, not its absolute value.
  • The completeness of the advertising register: whether quarterly publication takes place, and the share of the publisher circle covered relative to total state media spending.
  • The membership of the public media board: how many of the six seats are filled, and how this compares with the statutory full complement. Suggested target: full complement within six months.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request can be summed up in a single sentence: the government should tie to rules the two instruments it has just used — the owner’s personnel powers and the cutting off of state media financing. This request does not aim at the withdrawal of the individual decisions, nor is it a position on the quality of the content of the paper or programme concerned. It is about the fact that the quality of a democratic media system is measured by what the government of the day cannot easily do.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play here, and both point in the same direction. Ideological neutrality, because MIAK’s yardstick does not depend on which side’s media comes under pressure: if the structure was objectionable when it operated in one direction, then it is objectionable now, when it operates in the other. And transparency, because state media money and ownership powers are the two strongest — and at the same time least documented — instruments for shaping the public sphere, and about what is not documented the citizen cannot decide whether it was a professional or a political decision. The present government now has the greatest room for manoeuvre to create these rules; if it does so, it also binds its own successor, and that is the strongest form of credibility.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press by spectrum

The liberal-left and public affairs band treated the two cases separately, and in both concentrated on factual reporting. On the Mandiner case, Telex reconstructed the publisher’s ownership history — from the media holding through the foundation to state ownership — and also gave the paper’s state advertising revenue for last year. On the M5 case, Telex set out the public media’s official reasons in detail, including the topic and guests of the last broadcast of the programme that was taken off. 444.hu carried the same thread with the full content of the public media’s statement, adding that the day before the suspension there had still been talk of the programme continuing — that is, the decision changed quickly. 24.hu worked up both cases in separate articles, putting the official justification of “repeated breaches of the rules” in the headline in the M5 case. On the Mandiner case, HVG highlighted the ownership chain at the end of which the paper ended up with the state.

The economic band gave the deepest institutional analysis. Portfolio dealt not with the individual dismissals but with the situation around the Independent Public Media Board, and linked the notion of a truncated board of trustees to one of the gravest institutional crises in the history of post-transition public media. This is the only treatment that went back to the text of the legislation and clarified when the possibility of media-profession nomination opens up — the legal precision of the present analysis rests largely on that material.

The conservative band provided the strongest interpretive frame, and spoke openly from the side concerned. Magyar Nemzet framed the M5 case as part of a “series of attacks on press freedom”, building on the Media Association’s protest statement, which asked for a review of the decision and for an independent professional investigation. Another piece announced the launch of a new paper after the end of Mandiner. Mandiner’s own account of itself was terse factual reporting, but the paper also carried — citing Média1 — the professional observation clarifying the statutory condition for media-profession nomination. This is noteworthy from MIAK’s point of view: the two most important legal clarifications in the present analysis come from an economic and a conservative outlet, not from the band that otherwise accompanied the government’s steps uncritically. That in itself is an argument that media pluralism is a question not of taste but of information infrastructure.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Level of proof
Dismissal of the publisher’s chief executive 4 September 2026 prime ministerial announcement, concurring reports in several papers
Stopping of the paper’s state financing 4 September 2026 prime ministerial announcement
Entity exercising state ownership rights over the publisher Ministry of Finance (after the former foundation maintainer ceased to exist on 31 August 2026) company and ownership data, concurring reports in several papers
Last issue of the printed weekly 30 July 2026 publisher’s communication
The paper’s state advertising revenue last year some 390 million forints Telex, 4 September 2026
Redundancies at the publisher some 60 people, in June 2026 Telex, 4 September 2026
Relieving the M5 channel director of his duties 3 September 2026 official statement of the public media
Legal basis of the Independent Public Media Board Act XXI of 2026 (amending Act CLXXXV of 2010) legislation
Composition of the body 3 governing-party + 3 opposition nominees, alongside media-profession nominees text of the Media Act in force
Ratio required for constitution election of at least two-thirds of the nominated members text of the Media Act in force, following Portfolio’s analysis

A note on the data. In assessing the M5 case, the available sources contain two mutually irreconcilable claims: according to the public media the decision is traceable exclusively to professional breaches, while a governing-party journalist, citing his sources at the public media, mentioned a political motive. The blog accepts neither version as a finding of fact — MIAK’s proposal is aimed precisely at procedural guarantees because such disputes can only be settled by written reasons and a route of legal remedy, rather than by after-the-fact guesswork.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — treating media pluralism as an institutional guarantee, the publicity of state media spending and the strengthening of checks and balances (programme point ID: A6, A7, A9);
  • Culture (programme points) — monitoring media ownership and advertising market concentration, the principle of open, non-discretionary financing (programme point ID: KU2, KU5, KU7);
  • Public administration and e-government (background material) — the procedural order for exercising state ownership rights at media undertakings.

Two conceptual delimitations that are regularly conflated in public debate. The first: the exercise of ownership rights is not official action. When the head of a state-owned publisher is replaced by the entity exercising ownership rights, that is an act of company law — legally a different category from an authority sanctioning the press. This difference does not neutralise the question of media pluralism, but correct naming is a precondition of precision in the debate. The second: the members of the Independent Public Media Board are elected by the National Assembly, and the nominees are put forward by the parliamentary groups — that is, this is not a government appointment, and the body is not an organ subordinate to the government. Likewise: the National Assembly’s culture committee is a parliamentary organ, not a government body, even if the majority on it belongs to the governing party.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

Tocqueville opens the chapter on press freedom with unusual candour: he supports it not because he considers it good in itself, but because he sees no workable alternative. The weight of the argument lies precisely in this restraint — it follows not from enthusiasm but from structural insight.

“I confess that I do not entertain that firm and complete attachment to the liberty of the press which things that are supremely good in their very nature are wont to excite in the mind; and I approve of it more from a recollection of the evils it prevents than from a consideration of the advantages it ensures.”

“If anyone could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position between the complete independence and the entire subjection of the public expression of opinion, I should perhaps be inclined to adopt it; but the difficulty is to discover this position.”

The second quotation is the most precise theoretical frame for the present case. Tocqueville’s claim is that the intermediate state — in which the public sphere is free “to a certain degree” but power retains the possibility of intervention — is not stable, because there is no principle to say where the intervention should stop. In the Hungarian situation this is exactly the problem: if the exercise of the owner’s personnel powers and of the financing tap is not tied to a rule, then there exists no yardstick against which a next step would count as excessive. MIAK’s proposals 3.1 and 3.2 are not looking for the intermediate position — they are looking for the set of rules that would make the intermediate position definable in the first place.

📖 Source: Alexis de Tocqueville: Az amerikai demokrácia (Democracy in America)

6.4.2 Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators

The volume’s central proposition is that twenty-first century authoritarian rule is built not on open repression but on maintaining appearances. In media management this means that crude censorship is counterproductive: the aim is that the public sphere should look free, while the channels reaching the masses remain under control.

“In any case, it is an important insight that not everything needs to be censored. […] While fear dictators burn books and ban privately held newspapers, spin dictators mostly just push regime-critical outlets to the margins, and keep the state televisions for themselves.”

The authors attach concrete instruments to this proposition: part of the critical actors are made part of the system, another part is bound in with money, exclusive information and state advertising — the volume mentions the Hungarian media market expressly as an example. Two conclusions follow from this for MIAK, and the second is the more important. The first: the mechanism described did indeed operate. The second: the mechanism is not person-dependent. If state advertising and ownership powers remain discretionary instruments, then the description will remain valid after a change of government too, only the list of beneficiaries will be reversed. That is why MIAK proposes, in point 3.2, a content-neutral, indicator-based distribution — not because of any suspicion towards the present government, but because the structure itself carries the risk.

📖 Source: Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators

The propaganda model identifies five filters through which news passes on its way to the public; the first two of these are the structure of media ownership and the source of financing. The essence of the model is that it assumes no conspiracy: the filters arise systematically from ownership and revenue incentives, even without central instruction.

“The five filters narrow the range of news that passes through the gates, and even more sharply limit what can become »big news«, subject to sustained news campaigns.”

Translated to the Hungarian case, this model gives its most important warning in connection with the financing filter. The editorial direction of a publisher built on state advertising revenue does not have to be influenced by instruction: it is enough that both the source of the revenue and its cutting off depend on the decision-maker’s discretion. The announcement of the stoppage therefore does not affect only the paper concerned — it also carries a signal for every other newsroom in a similar situation. This is the effect that MIAK’s proposal 3.2 seeks to neutralise: if both distribution and termination take place according to pre-established rules, then the financing filter cannot operate as editorial guidance.

📖 Source: Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media

6.5 International comparison (where relevant)

European public service media systems apply two established patterns of guarantee. The first is temporal and substantive protection of the leadership mandate: the head of the public service media provider is elected for a fixed term, the mandate expires on a different cycle from the electoral one, and dismissal is possible only on exhaustive grounds listed in legislation. The second is the separation of financing from the budgetary decisions of the government of the day: in several member states the revenue of the public service media is available on the basis of a formula fixed several years in advance, precisely so that the annual bargain does not become an instrument of influence. The development of European media freedom regulation in recent years has raised these same two elements to EU level, supplemented by the requirement of transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory distribution of state advertising spending. Hungarian media market experience also played a part in the creation of that regulation — for the Hungarian side this is now not an embarrassment but a source of credibility: Hungary is in a position to adopt a domestic rule stricter than the EU minimum, and thereby also to answer the criticism relating to its own earlier practice.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances
  • A7 — Media pluralism as an institutional guarantee
  • A9 — Spin dictatorship prevention index

Culture

  • KU2 — Media pluralism monitoring
  • KU5 — Cultural participation index and open culture financing
  • KU7 — Disinformation resilience and media literacy programme

Suggested new programme point: Pre-established grounds for dismissal and legal remedy for the heads of state-owned media undertakings — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 5 September 2026 — topic 3):

Knowledge base references (specialist books):

  • 📖 Alexis de Tocqueville: Az amerikai demokrácia (Democracy in America)
  • 📖 Sergei Guriev – Daniel Treisman: Spin Dictators
  • 📖 Edward S. Herman – Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent — The Political Economy of the Mass Media

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6, A7, A9)
  • MIAK policy area: Culture (programme points; programme point ID: KU2, KU5, KU7)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 5 September 2026 — topic 3, score: 90/100

Supplementary public data sources (where used):

  • The text in force of Act CLXXXV of 2010 on media services and mass communication
  • Act XXI of 2026 (creating the Independent Public Media Board)

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