As part of a top-class and well-attended discussion event, yesterday, Tuesday, with the title “European media landscape-diversity or censorship” in the Hungarian embassy in Vienna, FPÖ general secretary and media spokesman NABG discussed. Christian Hafenecker, MA, as well as the general director of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and editor -in -chief of the news magazine “Mandiner”, Zoltán Szalai, about the challenges, problems and upheavals in Europe’s media policy. The event was moderated by Ralph Gert Schoellhammer, Head of Center “Applied History and Ir Theory” at Mathias Corvinus Collegium.
“System media act like an additional party – they operate election campaign, not journalism. Politicians give narrative, the media take them up, and the same politicians later refer to reporting – an ideological perpetuum mobile,” said Hafenecker. This game is particularly drastically observed in the classification of political opponents as a “right -wing extremist” – as in the case of the AfD or in Austria via the DÖW.
In addition, Hafeneck criticized EU instruments such as the digital services Act, with which government criticism is censored under the pretext of the combination of disinformation. Global platforms such as Facebook and Google are also increasingly supposed to suppress unpleasant opinions: “This is no longer freedom of expression, but targeted manipulation of public discourse.”
At the same time, Hafeneck asked support for new, alternative media formats: “In the Corona period, many people searched for independent information for the first time-that was the big breakthrough for free and alternative media. Today, these are fought through defamation and economic pressure-such as debanking.
In his contribution, Szalai emphasized the importance of the cultural struggle for sovereignty and praised the role of independent media platforms in Central and Eastern Europe, which further grow despite enormous resistance. Both speakers agreed: Media freedom in Europe is no longer a matter of course – it has to be fought and defended again.
The importance of Mathias Corvinus Collegium was also emphasized in this context. According to director Szalai, the debate culture is still being lived there, every opinion is listened to and presented, unlike at many state universities in Western Europe, although that would be their core task. In any case, the diversity of science, philosophy and idea is held up. Szalai also regretted that many media representatives would only selectively and prejudices about the work of the MCC without getting an honest picture of it.
Moderator Schoellhammer again made a comparison with the steady attacks on Hungary and his domestic policy. The fact that interior ministers were pursued, the judiciary criminalizes and excludes from elections, one of the government’s politics and “established media” are only selectively and ideologically driven about scandals, in the western “advocate democracies” such as Germany, France and Great Britain, however, is not the case in Hungary. Hafenecker also concluded that, who, as a connoisseur, confirmed that the freedom and sovereignty of the nation states and its self -determination were defended there, despite all attacks. The Hungarian people must be kept to the Hungarian.