Uncertainty reigns in communications right now as we keep concurrent eyes on the big factors of how we make a living: audience trends, revenue, technology and, for the first time, policies and actions of the federal government.
Sure, we can postulate, as I did a few weeks ago when trying to provide insight on how the financial challenges in the media business should affect PR. Or all of the speculation about how AI threatens the jobs of anyone who creates content.
But now, with an avalanche of action by the new administration in Washington – one that came to power in part by sowing distrust and spreading disinformation – it would be helpful to have some sort of an inside track on what’s coming so maybe, somehow, we can prepare. That led me to dive into what has been happening in Hungary as a recent and potentially relevant example.
Why Hungary? Since the end of the first Trump Administration, the MAGA leadership now in charge has focused there. Its Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Tucker Carlson favorite, spoke to the CPAC gathering in the U.S. in 2022 and 2023. Trump himself in a 2024 Presidential Debate, called Orban “smart” and, in a complimentary way, a “tough person.” If Hungary’s government is indeed a blueprint for the near term in the U.S., how might that affect media and communications?
The March 2020 edition of the British Journalism Review offers some answers in an article written by Scott Griffen, who has written globally about press freedom. The article, “Hungary: a lesson in media control” is accessible via academic libraries, and I obtained it via a contact with university library access and the lessons for this moment for all of us who work with or in media – and that includes social media (where Americans say they “get their news”) – are striking.
“More than any other country,” Griffen wrote, “it is Hungary that best exemplifies the shifting nature of the assault on media freedom.” There, he wrote, journalists are not jailed nor is there physical violence against them. There is even news coverage critical of Orban and his allies. But, the country is “achieving a degree of information control (that is) unprecedented,” once that is “deliberately designed to deter scrutiny,”
Griffen wrote that is done is four ways:
-State capture of the media through the forcible closure of effective government takeover of once-independent media
-Manipulation of the media market through the abuse of state resources and regulatory power
-The exclusion of independent journalists
-Preservation of the illusion of media freedom.
As for media capture, here’s what Griffen wrote: “Since coming to power for the second time…instead of bullying independent media into silence, Orban simply ensured that these outlets were purchased by friendly oligarchs, forcing a change in their editorial line. This strategy has allowed the…prime minister to assemble a massive pro-government media empire that is able to blanket the country with his message.”
It’s impossible not to think of Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos at the Inauguration just two weeks ago, with Elon Musk now inside the government, moving certain communication to the platform he controls, Mark Zuckerberg changing Meta’s content model and Jeff Bezos paying an astounding $40 million to Melania Trump for an Amazon documentary. That’s just in recent weeks. In Hungary, the media business is manipulated by chosen outlets receiving significant taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns that prop up these outlets with pro-government messages, financially damaging independent outlets.
As for the exclusion of independent journalists, that happened in the U.S. in the second weekend of the Administration, with “unfriendly” outlets being removed from their work spaces in The Pentagon, similar to how they were in Hungary. All the while, little-consumed, underfunded independent outlets continue to exist, giving Orban a defense against allegations of a crackdown on press freedom. In 2020, Griffen wrote that this model is “ripe for copying.”
You can call this hyperbole, but I consider it another reason why every communicator must start thinking differently about our roles and our futures. No matter who won in November, the continuation of the media business as we have known it was far from a sure thing. No matter who won, AI would still be looming, especially for jobs now done by the youngest in our businesses.
But now that the candidate who won is getting started in earnest, we know the federal government will continue be a factor. The First Amendment won’t necessarily protect us as it has – from journalists to PR types to anyone who makes a living by communicating anywhere in this country. It’s time to be aware of what those running the government know and Hungary’s model is one example.