The Craziest Lies of Hungarian State-Controlled Media —The Top 100 List
A few members from /r/hungary subreddit has translated the article The 100 Lies of the FIDESZ Media Empire, originally published by the oppositional news site 444.hu on October 24th, 2018.
All credit goes to the journalists of 444.hu for writing this article. This is an English translation done by the community of /r/hungary for the sake of international awareness. A few modifications and explanations were added for people that don’t know Hungarian politics. The original sarcastic tone of the article were tuned down by the translator, because the international audience would not get the insider jokes. Links are not present. Please see the original artice for those. But most importantly, the content and the principal message remained the same.
This is a full list, with the craziest lies. Read our shorter article, an extract, with only the craziest lies here.
Lie #1: Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting for the results of quota referendum: in case of a beneficial result, they will come to Hungary.
Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting for the results of quota referendum: in case of a beneficial result, they will come to Hungary.
A referendum related to the European Union’s migrant relocation plans was held in Hungary in October 2016. An overwhelming majority of voters have rejected the EU’s migrant quotas but due to the low voter turnout, the referendum was considered invalid. The M1 public service broadcaster had a whole day of coverage on the migrants wanting to settle in Hungary in case of a failed referendum.
Lie #2: Soros would have killed his own mother
George Soros has written extensively on reforming the US healthcare system and legalizing euthanasia in his Open Society Foundation study. Based on his personal experience with his suffering mother, he wrote about an institution where euthanasia was an option for his mother. He offered his mother his help with euthanasia: “I owed this to her” — he said, but he would have done it very reluctantly. It turned out he was glad that his mother chosen to live and could spend her last days with him and her family. TV2’s Tények (a 6:30 pm main news show) did not share these details, the only thing they announced was that Soros would have killed his own mother.
Lie#3: Ákos Hadházy has framed, rifled and plundered his neighbor who is now dead.
Ákos Hadházy is an oppositional party member, he had an ongoing trial with his neighbor, who died before the elections. The Hungarian state-controlled media had slowly built up the story up to the day before the election, where they shared that his “victim” is now dead. Oh and by the way it turns out that he also played the piano tastelessly and in shorts.
Lie #4 The Európa 2017 Campaign
During the upcoming weeks of the 2016 election, TV2 and Origo, along with various other small Facebook pages and Youtube channels had an intense anti-migration campaign. A series of short videos were released every day, with the titles: EUROPE 2017 — IS THIS WHAT WE WANT? where recordings of young black people beating up an old lady were shown. With the original videos muted, sounds of explosions and sounds of people screaming “Allahu Akbar” were added to the recordings. Turns out, many of them were not even related to Islamism or to actual migrants. They had one video from a 2015 Nebraska incident, where people assaulted a woman in a church.
Before the elections, Origo had 394 articles related to migration in a dehumanizing and demonizing view. All of these articles were written by unnamed authors.
Lie #5 Soros sent protestors by airplane, but turnout was low nonetheless.
That was Ripost reporting on the CEU protests, where more than 10.000 people had shown up. This lie has become very famous in the oppositional media.
Lie#6: Gábor Vona has secretly gone to Yemen, where he visited a congress of a party financed by Saddam Hussein himself
The state media has actually lost a trial due to these false accusations about Gábor Vona (once a leader of the largest opposition party). Vona has visited Yemen but he never hid it, he has written about his travel in his own book. How did Saddam get into the story? That’s a mystery.
Lie #7: All of the opposition would destroy the fence!
There is no party in Hungary that argued for the demolishment of the fence. Not a single one.
Lie #8: Essen (in German: to eat) would rename itself to Fasten (as in “to fast”) due to Ramadan
The Hungarian public service media has fallen for a German comedy news sites joke. They claimed that Germany is going through an Islamization, with the latest milestone of Essen renaming itself to Fasten due to the Muslim holiday of Ramadan — a time of fasting in Muslim tradition.
Lie #9: George Soros has financed Márton Gulyás with 20 billion forints
Gulyás Márton, an oppositional civil activist has received 20 billion forints — according to state-controlled media. The rumor was started by another independent civil (Robert Puzser, who later has backed off from his claim). He only talked about 20 million forints, when Origo shared the news. By the time it reached the public service media, the numbers have increased to 20 billion. The claims remained unproven, while the Pesti Srácok website had to correct the allegation.
Lie #10: Two thousand mercenaries of George Soros work in Hungary
Transcript: The fund is being used for the manipulation of Hungarian politics, which means that he [Soros] has lots of problems with the Hungarian Prime Minister.
Yes, that’s strange because…
He is Hungarian, isn’t he?
Yes, he is of Hungarian descent and has funded a university in Budapest and most probably to this day he has donated millions of dollars [to the university].
Probably this was done through various other charities.
More or less about two thousand people work in these charities.
(Source: TV2)
Both the Figyelo (a conservative Hungarian Christian business magazine) and Viktor Orban have been speaking about how more than two thousand followers of George Soros is working on undermining Hungary. Magyar Idok (newspaper associated with the government) tried to prove this with a manipulated voice recording (transcript shown on the image) that was cut and pieced together. However in the full recording what an employee of the Soros-fund really says is that they have two thousand people working for them worldwide, which was never a secret, to begin with.,
Hey! Thanks for scrolling this far! The aim of this small community project is to shed light on the current poor state of Hungarian free press and raise awareness among the European public not just on the lack of reasonable reporting from the FIDESZ connected media products — including the public service media, but to show how inflammatory language, conspiracy theories, attacks on oppositional politicians, civil organizations, NGOs and civil activists dominate the news and become widespread. Millions of Hungarians are watching and reading articles like these each and every day. These are not exceptions, these are the trend.
Lie #11: Vona and Hadházy (both oppositional party leaders) had a meeting for a secret pact on their boat: they have sold LMP (a green party) to Simicska
In January, Fidesz’s fake media run a ‘reveal’ story on the LMP-Simicska pact even though from the very beginning it was known to be a hoax.
Lie #12: Gabor Vona is chosen as an honorary member of the Grey Wolves terrorist group and declares faith in Allah
Lead: Gabor Vona, leader of Jobbik, in front of Muslim youth declares faith in Allah — found out from a video by Mandiner. Previously Vona has called Islam as the “last beacon of hope for Europe”. Furthermore, he also said he would not oppose the building of Mosques in Hungary.
People from Fidesz has prank-called people with the news (that Vona believes in Allah), and of course later they were called out on this as Gabor Vona — whom the Fidesz troll-machinery calls ‘homo’ and Muslim at the same time — has not talked with Islam radicals, and just like Fidesz, has also been against immigration all along.
Lie #13: Electoral fraud in Újpest
On election day, the media of Fidesz, including the public service media has called fraud in Újpest because the name of the Fidesz candidate had been taken off the ballots. They wrote that “if actions similar to this happen on a grand scale, the legality of the election will be questioned”. It turned out that the objects of concern were 21 badly printed electoral forms. All the other and bigger irregularities, for example, the ones favoring Fidesz or the organized transportation of Ukrainian voters were left unreported on public service media.
Lie# 14: Quota-Pact of Soros leaked: MP candidates with immigration friendly politics selected in 66 constituencies
Lead: While the news is taken up by quarrels between parties of the opposition, the decision about the final list of candidates has been made.
The Fidesz controlled media has named the united various oppositional MP candidates preparing for the elections the “Quota Pact” — as if they supported the EU’s quota politics. Nothing was leaked on any site, this was only a transparent ploy from Origo, which as expected swept through national media, as in many places no united opposition has prevailed as candidates did not step down (for the benefit of another opposition party who would have been in a better position to win in their constituency), and so Fidesz won ⅔ in the election.
Lie #15 : Gyorgy Soros, the mean, American, zionist multimillionaire
Last year M1 used the website of Iran’s Supreme Leader, in which he called Soros a mean, American, Zionist multimillionaire, even though it is common knowledge that he is not Zionist and mean is questionable as well.
Lie #16: 16. Due to the political correctness, Kinder chocolate had a photo of a black child on its cover
In August, Origo’s headline was “Newest PC action: the new face of Kinder chocolate is a black child.” They wrote that “an interesting thing happened in Germany when on the shelves an image of a black boy as the new face of Kinder chocolate appeared. According to Kinder’s website, this was only a limited edition series for the Football World Cup. Nevertheless, it seems like even the Germans try to conform to multiculturalism, in times like these.” Of course, the article forgot to mention that this edition was made especially for the World Cup, with images of select football players and the boy on the photo is Jerome Boateng a respected member of German National Team. In 2016 for the Europa League, Kinder has done the same.
Lie #17: Woman insulted by migrants at a party in Germany
Pesti Sracok shared a video with this title, but a little research could have shown that the so-called migrants were actually Jamaican men high on drugs, assaulting a Jamaican woman. The aggression shocked the Jamaican public sphere as well.
This is crazy right? You are still not finished. There’s 83 more to come.
Is there anything you can do to help? Yes, there is:
Please consider sharing this article with your friends to raise awareness
If you are a voter or supporter of the European People’s Party (which despite controversies like these upholds the FIDESZ membership of the party) please consider writing to your local representative in the European Parliament, call attention to the wrongful use of the FIDESZ’s media empire to spread propaganda not seen since the communist era’s darkest days. The list and the contact of representatives can be viewed here.
Please consider supporting your local civil organizations fighting for keeping the press free. If you don’t know any, consider supporting one of these on the list.
Don’t let this happen within your country! Consider supporting your regional or national independent news networks by subscribing or donating to them.
Lie #18: Laszlo Botka caught in one of Budapest’s most expensive restaurants
This is what Origo wrote about Kiskakukk restaurant. Maybe the menu illustrates it well that the allegation is untrue.
Lie #19: Index literally called the Hungarians idiots
M1 (the main channel of the Hungarian state television) said that Index (a popular independent Hungarian online newspaper) called Hungarians idiots which is completely false and they said exactly the opposite.
Lie #20 Those who do not vote for Fidesz, vote to not have Christmas ever again
This was Viktor Orbán’s Christmas message that was shown all over state media.
Lie #21 Bence Tordai has been downvoted by his students, they consider him a bad teacher.
The Origo wrote in July that Bence Tordai, parliamentary representative of “Párbeszéd” has been downvoted by his students on a teacher rating site (on “MarkMyProfessor” Bence Tordai has 2 profiles now, one of them he has a bad rating of 2.46 and a rather good 3.96 on the other, he was a teacher at BFK, which today is the Budapest Metropolitan University) . But the interesting thing is that the downvotes came around the time this article was written and at that point in time Tordai hasn’t been teaching for 3 years.
Lie #22: Péter Juhász drugged his wife, locked her in the house and severely abused her
In Bors magazine, on 29th August of 2018. On 10th February of 2018 an article was published where Péter Juhász was falsely accused of drugging his wife, locking her in the house and abusing her with the following title: “Drugged his wife, locked her in the house Péter Juhász” Every accusation in the article was a lie and not even the funny kind of lie.
Lie #23: People helping the refugees are war criminals and traitors to the state
This was said by László Földi in Lőrinc Mészáros’ own television. Földi is and ex-operations director of the Information Office (an intelligence agency) of Hungary, who in the past few years along with György Nógrádi, and Spöttle Georg has been one of the favorite “terror and migration experts” for the state media. It is as much crazy as it gets.
Lie #24: Migrant pissing in the metro is shocking Paris
Origo has shown a passenger in the New York metro in 2015 as a migrant in Paris. The article hasn’t been fixed or corrected ever since.
Lie #25: Márton Gulyás has called the “Soros storm squad”: they want to wreak havoc in Pest
“We can expect a wave right-wing violence from Soros in Budapest” — wrote Origo, foreshadowing that after the election, along with the opposition candidates the protesters will burn down the city. But the entire servant media — eg. Lőrinc Mészáros’s regional papers — said that Márton Gulyás(a civil activist), Soros’s governor in Hungary has called an anarchist from Hamburg (the Soros stormtrooper squad). Of course, nothing special has happened during the protests, even though the “Magyar Idők” (Hungarian Times) promised that Sorosists from Hamburg will bring weapons and Molotov cocktails. Origo later corrected the following way: “The organizers, by the way, got scared from the nationwide outcry and Soros’s little soldier, Márton Gulyás was forced to cancel the “rent-a-protester”. Scandal happened nonetheless — according to the media, where they showed that somebody puked on Oktogon (a square) as evidence.
Lie #26: Lajos Simicska shat himself
Origo, 20th October 2017: “On the photos made public, his clothes appear to be rather dirty, which the opposition propaganda media has tried to cover as a paint stain, but it is obvious that it is muddy because he fell because he was drunk. According to other sources, he simply shat himself.”
We reported about the graffitis of Simicska (now an oppositional media owner, once a friend of Viktor Orban) on the morning of 3rd of October, then Ripost that afternoon wrote about the same with “confirmed sources”. Not then and not later these “confirmed sources” have said such disgusting claims, that Lajos Simicska — the out of favor oligarch who made Fidesz great — shat himself. The keynote of the article was the sentence: “Pissing, naked chemistry(?), getting lost and the drunk Lali, who simply shat himself.”
Lie #27: Lies about Márton Gulyás being George Soros’s main man and the future leader of the opposition
Origo was forced by the law to make the following corrections “We lied when we said Márton Gulyás is defending George Soros and was given the task of organizing the new opposition. We lied when we said Márton Gulyás is organizing a protest for the weekend after the election. We lied when we said Márton Gulyás is the main man of George Soros in Hungary, the future opposition leader and is organizing a protest. We lied when we said Márton Gulyás was named by George Soros to be the new opposition leader and was given the task of organizing the new opposition.”
Lie #28: Vona has cheered for the execution of the generals of Arad, he is a follower of Haynau, identifies as a labanc
Lie #29: Vona stood out for the immigration quota
Vokál magazine was later forced to correct itself — only after the elections: “Vona didn’t stand for the immigrant quotas”.
Lie #30: The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is keeping a secret (it’s a well known civil organization)
Origo was once again forced to correct itself. In an article titled “Soros’ civils are keeping secrets,” they claimed that the Helsinki Committee did not fulfill an information request about their operations. Turns out, at the time of the publication of that article, the legal deadline for fulfilling the request was still very far away.
Lie #31: Juhász Péter has worked for Portik Tamás
After Péter Juhász (a civil activist) has talked a lot about the possible relations between minister Antal Rogán and the criminal Tamás Portik, the Fidesz media tried to present the message that it is Péter Juhász who actually works for Portik (a well-known mob guy). The Magyar Idők and Origo admitted that Juhász didn’t work for Portik and TV2, who called Juhász a liar has lost the lawsuit as well.
Lie #32: A Hungarian couple has almost been a victim of a terror attack in Tunisia
In the summer of 2015, Lokál has indicated that a couple almost died during their honeymoon, because they said yes to a one-week cheap journey to Tunisia. Right after their visit, at the end of June, 38 people were murdered by terrorists in Sousse, where the couple planned to travel. But because it is too warm in north-Africa, they booked the holiday to September, and “this saved their lives”
Lie #33: A Hungarian woman born in Sweden is moving to Hungary because of the refugees in Sweden
In the public service media, a woman who was given the name Natalie Contessa af Sandberg, a Swedish woman of Hungarian descent has stated that she fears the refugees so much that she is moving to Hungary. It turned out, that she only rented a house in Budapest a few years before, so the core of the story was a lie. Furthermore, she moved to Sweden with her mother when she was 8 — as an actual refugee. By the way, the woman was convicted with fraudulence back in Sweden.
Lie #34: Vona has been lead to Islam by his Palestinian best man
This story is true as far as Vona really had a Palestinian best man at his wedding, who helped him travel to Yemen, but the public media didn’t add that the Palestinian man is Zoltán Amin, who worked as the director of Duna television from 2010, and from 2014 October he became the program director of MTVA (the main organization of public service media) and he didn’t lose contact with the public television since then, he participated as a producer in many television programs. The goal of the article, of course, was to portray Vona as a Muslim, which is not true.
Lie #35: George Soros would bring immigrants to Hungary from March
Mayor Károly Szita (FIDESZ) has said in the public service media that the first two “Soros immigration organizer offices” will be opened in Debrecen and Pécs, and these offices’ task will be to “create a support network”. The reality is that the Open Society Foundation has worked together with the NGOs of Pécs and Debrecen to submit applications about improving housing, education, healthcare in impoverished areas in the respective regions. The reason they worked together was to assess the biggest factors of poverty and make effective applications for certain tenders that would help in improving the conditions of poor people. There wasn’t a single word about bringing immigrants into the country.
Lie #36: A shooting broke out at the Los Angeles International Airport
In the late summer of 2016 — shortly before the referendum about immigrant quotas — Lóránt Hevér, the anchorman of M1 (Hungarian state TV) had a discussion with local correspondent Gábor Kukóczki under this title. During the discussion words like “supposedly”, “reportedly”, “according to a news channel”, “allegedly” and “possibly” were frequently said. As it turned out, there was no shooting at all.
Lie #37: On the mobile phones found at Röszke (border town along the fence near Serbia), there were videos praising ISIS and a photo of a dead baby
During the autumn of 2015, M1 has been dragging out the story which tried to equate immigrants with terrorists for a long time: “experts on security policy” constantly kept finding new pro-ISIS propaganda pieces in the videos and photos of left behind phones. However, a simple search would have been enough to find out that the videos on the mysterious phones (which were never talked about again) were in fact warnings against the propaganda of ISIS. The most hilarious part is that the image of the “dead baby” — about which Geörg Spöttle Fidesz-activist said that it is the most terrible picture he’s seen in his entire life — was, in fact, an internet meme mocking the son of El Chapo Guzman, a Mexican drug lord.
Lie #38: There is a war-like situation in Kiskunhalas
This was stated by László Földi, the “regular security policy expert” of M1 in July 2016. In reality, the situation was the following: one of the speakers of the refugees, a Syrian man has written a petition to the immigration agencies of Hungary then asked other immigrants to depart for Budapest. Some people were shouting and protesting but the order has been restored by sunset, although the refugees were still protesting: they wanted better conditions and faster processing of their cases. Angry people shouting is not a war-like situation -despite László Földi’s claim.
Lie #39: The public media has been paying special attention to provide correct and authentic information, a balanced time for different parties, and granted more time than required to different political parties that they could use to introduce themselves during the 50 days campaign period.
This was said by Menyhért Dobos, the CEO of the Duna Media Provider Non-Profit company on M1 on the 8th of April, the day of elections. However, the National Electoral Committee, the Curia (the Hungarian Supreme Court) and the Constitutional Court have all stated: it was unlawful that the public media did not invite opposition politicians to their morning shows. The public media’s reaction to this was: “it is the opinions and not their representatives that should appear in the media content”.
Lie #40: According to the German press, it’s clear that immigrants were behind the Münster vehicle attack
On the day before the elections, the public service media was blaming the vehicle attack on immigrants all day long and blared without providing any source that according to the German press it was clearly committed by immigrants. They kept pushing the story even after the perpetrator turned out to be not an immigrant but a mentally ill German, the 48 years old Jens Alexander Rüther.
Lie #41: . An Afghan man suspected of sexual violence could only remain in Hungary due to the legal aid he received from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (human rights NGO)
They really wanted to blame NGOs for the crime of the 18 years old S. B. Ahmad, but after Magyar Hírlap (conservative daily newspaper) even EchoTV (Christian-conservative commercial TV owned by Orbán’s friend) had to admit: “In our article we were incorrectly stating that it was due to the legal aid of the Helsinki Committee that the Afghan man suspected of sexual violence could stay in the country. The man named in the article could, in fact, remain in Hungary because the Office of Immigration and Nationality has given him protected status during a proceeding in which no employee or appointee of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee has given him any legal aid.” Thus, the person named in the article could remain in Hungary entirely independently from the influence of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.
Lie #42:Gábor Vona (then president and PM-nominee of Jobbik, the largest opposition party) participated in gay parties
Tények (a news show on the freely available commercial Fidesz-friendly TV2 channel), after using Terry Black (a well-known Hungarian transvestite who was campaigning for Fidesz) and János Zuschlag (a convicted ex-socialist politician and entrepreneur, now campaigning for Fidesz), altered one of Gábor Vona’s statements using a cut: when the president of Jobbik was talking about how he attended intellectual gatherings, even in Viktor Orbán’s civil circles, the second part of the sentence was not shown in Tények — they made it look like he was admitting what Terry Black has stated, that he was attending gay parties. In response, Jobbik has sued the entire Fidesz media empire.
43. There is a Muslim symbol in Jobbik’s logo
The red crescent is not a symbol of Islam, the crescent in Turkey’s flag is white and has a star as well. Acc
According to Jobbik’s webpage: “Jobbik’s crest is a stylized sailboat, with a mast being of a double cross and the sail itself having our national colors. It means that our historical traditions give the foundation (the mast), upon which our communities (families, organizations, municipalities, churches and the nation itself) must build themselves together.”
There is also a crescent in the Székely flag: https://4cdn.hu/kraken/image/upload/s--mDsbubEb--/77Q7wey9xM4gJMBxs.png
Lie #44: Gábor Vona has offended the pensioners
The president of Jobbik is not willing to apologize to pensioners. A few weeks ago he was talking about them on Facebook using a very vulgar style.
Fidesz has admitted that they are calling pensioners with the following speech: “I wish you a good day! I am calling you because you need to know that Gábor Vona, the president of Jobbik has offended the pensioners. He said about them that wastewater is drooling from their mouth, they jump at each other without consideration, they want to shed blood with their shaking hands, and they are shouting obscenely. This is outrageous! Jobbik should be ashamed! This is not the first time that they turn their back on pensioners, not the first time that they are offending them. The utterance of Gábor Vona is just the latest example. Let us not forget it, let’s remember this when we are voting! Thank you for your attention.”
Origo (the largest online media, acquired by Fidesz allies) on the other hand blared that “Gábor Vona should apologize to all Hungarian pensioners”. After a woman whistling at Viktor Orbán in disapproval was physically harassed in Tusványos, the president of Jobbik has written the following: “the lynch mood swept through the Victorian pensioners standing there”. He has also written about hateful Fidesz-fan pensioners after he’s experienced during one of his street forums that “there was a cursing Fidesz-fan pensioner wandering about in about every two minutes, repeating the lies of TV2. So he was talking about Fidesz-fan pensioners, not pensioners in general, which is an important distinction to be made.
Lie #45: The elderly are terrified since Gábor Vona [former leader of the main far-right opposition party ‘Jobbik’] publicly railed against the pensioners
It was low-point in the history of Hungarian media when Origo [major pro-government news portal] cited anonymous pensioners saying that Jobbik [far-right opposition party] supporters are harassing them. TV2 [commercial television channel] also propagated the lie. No pensioner has ever reported being harassed for political reasons to the police.
Lie #46: A migrant attacked a police dog in Paris
“In the dodgiest neighborhood of the city — Sein-Saint-Denis — located in north-western Paris, a migrant attacked a police dog.” — says the commentary published with the video below. The truth is that the video was recorded in 2017 in New Zealand and the attacker is not at all a migrant.
Lie #47: Simicska [Hungarian businessman with extensive media interests and opposition sentiments since 2014] threatened Károly Szita
After being featured on Hirado.hu [official news portal of the state-financed media], Origo and Lokál [Hungarian tabloid/news portal] also published the original article practically verbatim: “Simicska Threatened Szita”. Hirado.hu wrote: Quite predictably, the once prestigious ‘Magyar Nemzet’ [former conservative newspaper] in the midst of the election campaign doesn’t even refrain from citing a source who was decorated by the socialist minister of internal affairs Mónika Lamperth in 2004 (at the time of the first Szita-accusation.).
They meant the following sentence in the original article: “Fenesi Lajos retired commander and former recruiter of communist agents was awarded the Magyar Köztársasági Ezüst Érdemkereszt in 2004 by the minister of internal affairs Lamperth Mónika”. Fenesi was not cited by “Magyar Nemzet” and they didn’t use him as a source either, rather the opposite, they condemned him for possibly being the one who recruited Szita and was only quoting domestic-intelligence files.
The pro-Fidesz media outlets wrote: According to our information there were messages sent to the town hall of Kaposvár saying “It’d be best if Karcsi [Károly Szita] kept a low profile otherwise nasty things might happen”, but as Szita is quite experienced in this milieu he did not get scared of such blackmail. All outlets published Szita’s response: “My conscience is clean, I am not afraid of you, Lajos Simicska.” Károly Szita, the major of Kaposvár, is suspected, based on domestic-intelligence files, to have been an III/II agent reporting, among others, on his relatives. Whenever he sued because of similar accusations he avoided defamation in his lawsuits as this would have given the defendant the opportunity to try and prove the allegations in court.
Lie #48: The Hadházy clan was involved in shady land deals
We have already covered here and here how TV2 [commercial television channel] and Origo [major pro-government news portal] tried to blame the shady deals surrounding the state land auctions on Ákos Hadházy, then co-leader of the political party LMP [liberal opposition party] who exposed fraudulent dealings of the government, as in many cases it was people affiliated with the government who mysteriously won these biddings. Hadházy wrote: “The news program ‘Tények’ yesterday has found 40 hectares of land for my mom and 10 hectares for my father. Unfortunately, my parents do not know about this. My father has been cultivating a vineyard on 6,5 hectares for 30 years with his own hands. If TV2 would be kind enough to let us know where these lands are, or could point to a cubic meter of state land that my parents, siblings, me, my children or my wife have bought I will resign and go into agriculture.
49. Katinka Hosszú [Hungarian competitive swimmer and Olympic champion] quits, she won’t compete until 2024
Ripost published this alarmist article a couple days after Viktor Orbán canceled Budapest’s Olympic bid, as he got intimidated by Momentum party [small opposition party that opposed the Olympic bid]. The message to broadcast here was that Momentumkills the dreams of Hungarian sportsman.
Lie #50: Gábor Vona gets a 20 million forint car from Lajos Simicska
“The truth is that Gábor Vona never got a car from Simicska Lajos, the photograph presented in the article shows a grey Audi produced in 2013 that is worth nowhere near 20 million forints, has never belonged to Gábor Vona neither has it ever been used by him.” — Says the correction issued by ‘Magyar Idők’ [conservative Hungarian newspaper]. Similar corrections had to be made by Origo [major pro-government news portal] and Ripost [Hungarian tabloid].
Lie #51: Demonstrators boo the Hungarian Anthem
The lie that demonstrators booed the Hungarian Anthem has spread to Origo [major Hungarian pro-government news portal], 888 [pro-government blog and news portal], Lokál [Hungarian news portal/tabloid] and Ripost [Hungarian tabloid] in just one hour. The claim was brought up again the next day by Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations Zoltán Kovács and [former] leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group Lajos Kósa in the parliament.
Lie #52: There was evidence that Pál Schmitt [former President] did not commit plagiarism
Years before the establishment of the government cheerleading media-empire, Péter Obersovszky [deceased journalist and television host] — as if a prelude to Barna Fábián [television host at the state-financed news channel], has already posed leading questions to Pál Schmitt after the former president’s doctoral title has been revoked due to plagiarism. The documents Obersovszky came in possession of did not prove anything and the academic senate of Semmelweis University has declared the case an obvious instance of plagiarism.
Lie #53: Nobody pays any attention to Olga Kálmán in this country
Andor Éva, the registered partner of Origo’s [major pro-government news portal] editor in chief is presenting a demeaning report on Olga Kálmán [acclaimed television host and news editor]
“Does she really think that there is anyone in this country who takes her seriously?” Origo has actually published an article earlier contradicting their own statement just months before the of acquisition of ‘HírTV’ by a pro-government media company: “Matolcsy Ádám’s [son of the president of the central bank and a wealthy entrepreneur] newspaper was constantly talking about Olga Kálmán”.
Thank you for scrolling to this point! With the vast majority of national and regional media controlled by one foundation (previously controlled by a few well known FIDESZ oligarchs), it’s important to keep in mind that these are mainstream, well known, national TVs, public service TVs, papers and news sites with a wide reach among the Hungarian population. They are not a fad, they are not an underground, unknown, minority conspiracy media. They constitute the mainstream media, that reaches millions of people.
Lie #54: A gang of African immigrants attacked a waiter in Prague
In April 2018 this unsourced article appeared on Origo, but it turned out that the perpetrators were not a gang of immigrants, but a group of friends from Netherlands, celebrating a bachelor party. Among the Dutch citizens there were guys with Moroccan, Croat, Iranian and Turkish ancestry.
Lie #55: An oppositional LMP politician have helped the immigration by working with Migszol (an NGO: Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary)
Based on unfounded facts and straight up lies coming from hirado.hu (meaning: news.hu) about Janan Mirwais were spread all over the Hungarian media. The FIDESZ media empire claimed that the LMP (an oppositional party) member Mirwais helped people to migrate to Hungary by working with an NGO. Mirwais is not a member of this group, nor he ever worked with them. Mirwais is a respected lawyer and even though he was declined a membership in National Security Council, he lives in Hungary since age 4, he is a Hungarian citizen, speaks Hungarian perfectly and does his part in Hungarian civil society. The attacks against him were part of a wider attack to discredit the oppositional LMP party.
Lie #56: Terry Black was bribed so he would not talk about Vona
A Hungarian transvestite celebrity was given constant and disproportionate screen time on the news of the FIDESZ media empire as he was willing to call Gabor Vona gay. As a campaign to discredit Vona — the leader of the largest oppositional party leader, has become more and more elaborate, in July, Vona’s party’s, the Jobbik has announced that they have won more than 130 trials against the FIDESZ’s fake news factories. Of course, the story about Vona being gay turned out to be unfounded.
Lie #57: Fidesz’s 23% support > 38% undecided
A classic case of lying with the statistics has appeared in Lokál, a free newspaper distributed in every public transport. With the title “FIDESZ is winning since 10 years” the orange part of the pie representing FIDESZ is visually bigger than the 38% share of undecided voters.
All credit goes to the journalists of 444.hu for writing this article. This is an English translation done by the community of /r/hungary for the sake of international awareness.
Lie #58: 235 is actually four time bigger than 129
Another case of lying with the statistics has appeared in public service TV, where 235 was the number of people trying to cross the border in comparison with the previous days in the last month. The problem was that on the previous day week 129 people have tried to cross, but the column chart gave the false impression of a spike in the number of immigrants.
Lie #59: 2,5 < 2,4 < 3,0 < 2,8 < 2,3 < 3,1 < 2,7 < 2,1
A so called expert on economy has been a guest of the public service TV, where he reported on the GDP growth predictions done by the IMF, the EC, the OECD and the Hungarian government. The graphs are a mess, they don’t even make sense from the propaganda perspective, but the conclusion on the TV show was that all these international organizations are satisfied with the Hungarian economy.
Lie #60: A star-studded Chinese-Canadian-Hungarian film will be produced in Budapest
On October 3rd Origo reported that Salma Hayek, Dakota Johnson, and Ewan McGregor will arrive soon in Budapest to take part in a joint Chinese-Canadian-Hungarian film production. Nothing else is known about the project, and when reporters from Index tried to follow up with the actors only Lucas Till’s staff responded: they have never heard of the movie and Till is busy until next April filming the new MacGyver. This is in spite of Origo reporting that production will be underway by the end of the month.
Lie #61: Kocsis-Cake Olivio’s had slip of the tongue: they support mass migration!
Kocsis-Cake Olivio (founding member of Párbeszéd Magyarországért, a left-leaning green party formed in 2013), a representative of Párbeszéd Magyarországért misspoke on ATV when he said: “We think that we have to get people to leave their homes, their birthplace en masse.” In the full quote he actually stated the opposite — albeit in a roundabout way: “We think that we have to get people to leave their homes, their birthplace en masse — the European Union, the United States and all the developed countries of the world, have to take steps so that this doesn’t happen.” Origo was later forced to offer a correction to their story.
Lie #62: Fans think Georges Leekens deserves their trust title: The result at this stage is secondary
Origo undertook the task to explain why it was a good thing that on the debut home match of the new head coach, the Hungarian team lost to Kazakhstan, who was ranked 136th in the world. Citing the questionable statements from anonymous fans they wrote: The result at this stage is secondary. Fans think the Belgian coach deserves their trust. Even the state-owned M4 Sport dared to report that the fans jeered and whistled and chanted critical rhymes at the Hungarian players. Georges Leekens was fired in three months.
Lie #63: It was disillusioned Jobbik voters who put stickers on Gábor Vona’s car and on Jobbik posters. They also made a Facebook page that spread messages in line with the governing party’s message, and disillusioned Jobbik members attended the Peace March.
All of the listed headlines were reported by Origo, but SzegedMa was also at the right place at the right time. The aforementioned Facebook page doesn’t look like it was made by disappointed Jobbik voters, but more like one of the pages of Fidesz’s troll army.
Lie #64: Hadházy (head of LMP) regularly meets with Adám Simicska about the cooperation between Jobbik and LMP in a restaurant close to the offices of LMP.
Another facet of the boat-pact conspiracies was proven false when hirado.hu had to issue the following retraction: “In our show, we falsely claimed that Ákos Hadházy regularly meets with Ádám Simicska about the cooperation between LMP and Jobbik at a restaurant close to one of the offices of LMP.”
Lie #65: George Soros’ civil organizations attempt to conquer the Hungarian justice system and pressure judges
This was first reported last October by Origo, but they state it even more strongly this year. This in spite of the fact that in an interview with Origo Tünde Handó (József Szájer’s wife, who is far from an opponent of the government, and not easily accused of being a Soros agent), when asked whether there has been an investigation into Soros’ attempts to influence the courts stated: “There was no investigation, and there was no need for one. In 2016 we organized 528 training events with 25 thousand attendees. In contrast, there was one two day event organized as part of a project of a civil organization on the topic of hate crimes. 19 judges and 20 prosecutors attended the latter. This poses no threat to the judiciary.”
Lie #66. Márton Gulyás (a left-wing civil activist) had dashed from the court to PlanetRomeo and celebrated with a selfie.
Origo and Ripost spread personal information last year in an attempt to discredit Márton Gulyás, stating that after being released from his 72-hour interment he received due to misbehaviour at a demonstration, he immediately headed to a homosexual dating website where he celebrated by posting a selfie. Gulyás sued both platforms who had to pay 4.3 million in restitution. At the court, Gulyás stated that the photo wasn’t even current, and was shot at least a year ago, which was apparent since he had a different haircut and records showed that he was not active on the site that day.
Lie #67: Momentum might be renting their secret party headquarters from Péter Róna
The allegation was made by Origo, which resulted in them promptly losing the lawsuit since this a simple factual question which can be determined from public records that show that the real estate in question was not owned by Péter Róna.
Lie #68: Multiple sources stated that Hadházy’s expropriation campaign deeply affected state employees and he was personally perceived to have a degrading and insulting attitude toward the daily work of employees of state-owned companies
This was the reaction concocted by the author of an anonymous article on Origo after a sound recording emerged on which a state official admitted to Ákos Hadházy that much fewer National Consultation questionnaires were returned than what the government boasted. Origo also wrote in a caption of a photo on kormany.hu that “in the background, you can see the boxes collecting the National Consultation questionnaires, each box contains 500 questionnaires”, Hadházy, however, stated that “the whole Consultation is bogus, there’s no record, not even a single paper sheet”. Hadházy told Index that the boxes stacked behind him were empty and some were even folded together.
Lie #69: They have gotten into the building by breaking the law, deceiving the receptionists, publishing false data and illegally obtaining a key card, only to intimidate the pensioner protecting journalists of Ripost.
Ripost, TV2, Origo, and the national media have all called for blood when the Jobbik supportive N1 TV have walked into the editorial office of Ripost with a camera. The truth, however, is that as you could clearly see on the footage of N1 TV, (which often utilizes some controversial methods,) there was absolutely no deceiving the receptionists, or committing crimes, they were simply let into the building, and Péter Szilvási (the reporter of N1 TV, accused of trying to intimidate the journalists) was not aggressive at all, only politely asking questions.
Lie #70: Lajos Simicska’s son might be the 5th on Jobbik’s electoral list
(Lajos Simicska is a Hungarian businessman, the 11th richest person in Hungary. He used to be the biggest ally of Fidesz in the high levels of media, however, he had a public feud with Victor Orbán in 2014 and has been in the party’s bad books ever since.)
Origo has published the article, citing Ripost, that by the time of the publication Ripost has already had to disclose an emendation. Of course, later Origo had to publically do so, too. Ádám Simicska (Lajos Simicska’s son) was not on Jobbik’s electoral list at all.
Lie #71: Saakashvili has started a war with Russia at the urge of then US President George Bush in 2008
(Saakashvili is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician)
This is what Origo wrote when it reported that Victor Orbán has been greeted by protesters in Georgia. As if the Russian-Georgian war hasn’t been the consequence of Russian aggression, which Orbán has stated himself back then, “Something happened that we haven’t seen since the end of the Cold War. The enforcement of the imperial approached raw strength-politics, that Russia just chose to do, had been unseen in the last 20 years.”
Lie #72: The ticket sales of the mini-railway of Felcsút are improving in the long term, according to experts, which shows that it’s a good investment in the long term
TV2’s News have made the enthusiastic segment about the mini-railway of Felcsút, which operates at loss. The mini-railway, according to data from August, has generated an 8.2 million HUF deficit, which is exactly twice as much as it did in the first 14 months of its operation. In the May and June of 2018, the trains run without passengers for 10 days. But despite the losses, the government didn’t give up on its plan to extend the railway to Bicske (Hungarian town 5 miles/8.4 kilometer from Felcsút) with additional funding of 600 million HUF provided from the EU’s aid.
Lie #73: Zoltán Spéder only meets his lover, the love of his life, in public
(Zoltán Spéder is a rich Hungarian businessman. Used to be buddies with Fidesz too, but is another person who has fallen into their bad books.)
This is what Ripost has stated in the since-deleted article (but still available in archives), which they published after the report by TV2, where they have shown a picture of Zoltán Spéder, made by an Italian paparazzo, where they tried to defame him by the fact that he wears shorts. The report of Nóra Kunfalvi (“journalists”) has aired, right when the state offices have launched a synchronized attack against his business interests. He has sued and won multiple million because according to the court, they have spread false statements about him. And the article of Ripost, which states that he is only willing to see his partner in public, is obviously unrealistic idiocy.
Lie #74: A witness has come out to testify about how Csaba Czeglédy has transported money to Gyurcsány in a shoebox
Ference Gyurcsány is the ex-PM of Hungary, currently leading one of the many of the small parties in opposition. He was involved in a scandal during his term, when audio of him has leaked, saying he and his government have lied from dusk till dawn, and that they fucked up, which lead to riots in Budapest in 2006.
Before the elections, TV2 has given a lot of attention to Csaba Czeglédy, the lawyer-politician-businessman who used to run in MSZP’s and DK’s circles (left opposition parties of Hungary), and against whom they run an investigation related to tax fraud and organized crime charges, and even arrested for a short time.
TV2’s multiple programs have stated some hard to believe accusations, that he transported money in a shoebox to bribe people for Gyurcsány. The source of the accusations was an anonymous figure only shown as a dark silhouette on TV with their voice changed. Czeglédy has sued for slander, and it has been revealed in court that the information has been the same, as provided to the authorities by János Zuschlag, who was serving a jail sentence for tax fraud at the time, so he definitely couldn’t have been the protected witness on TV, it could only be an extra.
Lie #75: The post office has performed well in the Christmas rush
Origo reported this in the title of the article published on the 16th of January 2017, in the form of an interview with Zsolt Majláth, the vice-director of the National Post Office, where he answered questions, but the statement above has never even been mentioned. In truth, The Post Office has taken Christmas quite hard, and they couldn’t handle the abundance of packages and the very urgent delivery of Erzsébet vouchers to pensioners. (These are vouchers the government gives to pensioners as a form of extra-allowance, which they can use to buy groceries in supermarkets). Some gifts haven’t arrived even by January, with the state of affairs being even worse in Budapest district of Erzsébetváros (Erzsébettown, quite ironicly).
Lie #76: Soros’s goons are forcing migrants towards the Hungarian border by beatings
Forget about how suspicious the migrant-protest was in Belgrade, on the exact dayy of the national vote on the EU’s quota system. The statement of Magyar Idők, according to which Soros’s men are forcing migrants towards the Hungarian border by beating them, is an outright lie triumphing all the others. The Serbian Blic, which has been cited as the source by Magyar Idők, has written that on the day of the protests a couple of migrants have gotten into an argument with each other, which turned into a fight. The so called “goons of Soros” had nothing to do with it.
Lie #77: A businessman in Jobbik circles have tried to bribe Terry Black with 5 million HUF, so he would redact his claim, that Gábor Vona is gay
Terry Black is a transvestite “celebrity”. He used to be a pornstar, and a transvestite entertainer, a sort of celebrity. He opened the first gay bar in Hungary and then later dabbled in politics as well. He made a claim, that Gábor Vona, one of the leading men in Hungary’s far-right party (the biggest party in opposition), is gay. Because that’s newsworthy in Hungary…Gábor Vona has of course sued for slander.)
This happened last spring. They haven’t reached a verdict yet, but the news site close to Jobbik, Alfahír, the respondents have yet to show any evidence of their claim against Gábor Vona.
Lie #78: Soros committed the same crimes in 1944 as the Nazi leaders were put on trial for in Nuremberg.
The right-wing online magazine Pesti Srácok started the story, which quickly gained momentum in the Fidesz-dominated media outlets about the 14-year-old George Soros, who at the time was hiding from deportation or murder that awaited people of Jewish descent at the time. The story -quoting Pesti Sracok- “would have made any of the Nazi leaders explaining themselves in Nuremberg proud”. “After the Nazi occupation in 1944, his father broke up his family to save them. He purchased fake documents for everyone; his 14-year-old son was entrusted to a bribed clerk working in the Ministry of Agriculture, named Baumbach as his godson. This clerk had an interesting activity during the Holocaust in Budapest coordinated by Veesenmayer and Eichmann. The little George Schwartz along with his fake godfather took part in razzias where Jewish property was seized.” As Soros said “Whether I was there or not, I was only an observer, and the property was about to be taken with or without me. I had no role in this” Anyone thinking this equals to what Alfred Rosenberg did is obviously lying.
Lie #79: Jews in New York defended Orbán
Last year the United Orthodox Congregation of New York has defended Orban against charges of antisemitism leveled against him. This is a very small, unknown organization, and the statement of the “Representatives of the New York Jews defended” Orban is obviously not true at all. Szilárd Németh even interpreted this news as “all of New York’s Jews” defended Orbán
Lie #80: To uphold order, signs prohibiting football were placed in Saint Petersburg
It was pure stupidity by Magyar Idők, but they never actually admitted it, or published a correction.
Lie #81: The Soros Foundation’s photocopiers were almost exclusively used to spread liberal propaganda in the 1980s
This was written by Kata Jurák in Magyar Idők. This is not true as we have discussed before.
Lie #82: The Kuruc.info has published Tamás Varga-Bíró’s work without his consent
T. V-B was a blogger at the Pesti Sracok (and frontman of Echo TV) and claimed that the Neonazi news portal, Kuruc.info, has published his work without his consent. Kuruc.info has, in turn, published their email exchanges which refuted this claim. T V-B then had to admit that his claim was not true, he was forced to apologize, and his career as a public figure at the Echo TV has ended.
Lie #83: The CEU serves as the training ground for the “shadow powers” working behind the scene in Europe
Nothing to add here.
Lie #84: The BBC mapped the network of the “Shadow Powers”
The joke by the BBC has been presented as serious by both Figyelő and Magyar Idők. They still have not published a correction. Source: Magyar Idők
Lie #85: There were 2500 fans attending to the closed-door Ujpest-Vasas football match
As part of the media campaign to give credibility to the stadium building spree in Hungary, the FIDESZ media empire constantly lies about the viewership of the matches. They made a mistake in this scenario as the Ujpest-Vasas match had to be played behind closed doors due to the misbehavior of the ultras in previous matches.
Lie #86: The law criminalizing homelessness was passed to protect the dignity of the homeless
As it was said on the TV2 channel’s program, Tenyek (Facts). What actually happened was “Olah Kalmanne could not attend in person in the Court’s building; instead, she took part in the proceeding remotely, using a monitor as she was incarcerated in the Gyorskocsi utca Jail, which is in the same block. This was not a unique case; homeless people had been representing themselves through means of electronic devices instead of personal representation. This has been objected by the lawyer of the defendant, Noemi Molnar, who argued that her client deserved the right to be in the courtroom in person. The court has overruled her objection. The option of using telecommunication devices during the trial had been, so far, only used in extremely sensitive cases, where witnesses were under maximum protection. The use of the technology this way has only been applied in misdemeanor cases against the homeless.” Anyone stating the law protects the dignity of the homeless is lying.
Lie #87: Members of Momentum threatened citizens with hanging, who were protesting because the son of Imre Mécs offended people living in the countryside
János Mécs, a politician of Momentum wrote a satirical essay about people of the countryside and the state media made a big scandal lasting weeks. Fidesz sent its members to Momentum’s events in the countryside, pretending to be outraged civilian protesters, then the Fidesz backed media spun this as Momentum members threatened the innocent protesters with hanging. SzegedMa wrote that in Szeged city, members of Momentum threatened to hang a woman with her scarf, but this turned out to be a lie, as an elderly man said that, who was at their forum too and in fact Momentum’s local activists were trying to calm the situation.
Lie #88: Origo wrote that there was a scandal during Gábor Vona’s speech before he even set foot on the stage
This story has been circulated for hours in Fidesz mediums. Although a group of 30–40 turned up at the memorial, they were sent away by the police and left without doing anything, before the event even began.
Lie #89: László Botka, tasked by Csaba Czeglédy, tried to bribe and silence Bálint Szabó with tens of millions of forints
Pesti Srácok — which was always eager to interrogate Bálint Szabó, who always gave suspicious statements — later issued a correction and had many lawsuits regarding this story.
Lie #90: The Kun-Mediátor case could be related to both MSZP and Jobbik
After they tried to connect this to Fidesz, their media has tried to put the blame on opposition parties MSZP and Jobbik. Tények interviewed a man from Karcag, Sándor Béres, who said rumors are spreading in the city, which says that Épkar supported Jobbik’s campaign. But Épkar’s manager was connected to István Tiborcz (related to the PM) by Alfahír and Sándor Béres wasn’t an independent interviewee: he is the president of the Karcag-based Országos Nyugdíjas Polgári Egyesület and their local branch, Karcagi Nyugdíjas Polgári Egyesület. These organizations received help at their start from Sándor Fazekas, who was the mayor of the town and later become the agricultural minister in the government and a supporting member of these organizations. The whole case is suspicious, there was no evidence, and as long as the opposite of that doesn’t turn out to be true, this will be just another blatant lie.
Lie #91: Momentum is illegally gathering signatures
Origo released a correction: On the 5th of December, 2017, an article titled „Momentum is illegally gathering signatures” was published on Origo, in which we falsely stated that „members of Momentum only let guests into their public forum if they signed and supported — and gave their personal details — their referendum. Furthermore, they only let people in if they completely filled out their referendum forms, supporting the referendum against their will. Furthermore, we falsely stated that if somebody was interested in the forum, it was mandatory to support their „great” cause — started to repel the ??? — which is problematic and unethical, because participants weren’t willing to do that, as they were only interested in attending the event. In contrast, the truth is that it wasn’t mandatory to sign to be able to participate in the event. It was completely voluntary.
Lie #92: Index is funded by the leftist opposition
Pic: Tímea Szabó, the leader of opposition party Párbeszéd, exposed Index, an opposition propaganda site, by admitting that she gives money to it. Her statement clearly shows that the site isn’t independent at all. It previously served Lajos Simicska, when this served their interests. After Index asked its readers for support and Tímea Szabó said that she gives Index money too, Origo instantly deducted, that the site is funded by the opposition, so it’s not independent.
Lie #93: Aurora is a drug den
Aurora isn’t a drug den — as stated otherwise by Pesti Srácok — but a nightclub in the capital’s 8th district and is still open.
Lie #94: Macron doesn’t allow nation-states to defend their sovereignty
Origo wrote in September that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, posted the following on Twitter: “I won’t let nation-states defend their sovereignty”. This perfectly fits the rhetoric of Fidesz, but in reality, Macron posted the following: “I will not leave it to nationalists to defend sovereignty”.
The meaning of the two statements are completely different and his real statement doesn’t speak out against nation-states, but the far-right. It’s possible that Bálint Brodics, the article’s author doesn’t really speak English and since it hasn’t been corrected, it’s still a lie.
Lie #95: Volunteers of Fidesz were attacked in public in broad daylight
Szegedma wrote that „helpers of Fidesz were attacked in the streets in Szeged”, „a group of 15 attacked 2 women activists, they had to flee”. But a video proves that nobody ever attacked them, people just stopped a few meters away from them and read out loud a few passages from the law.
Lie #96: The MTA TK (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Social Sciences Research Centre) contributor lived off of taxpayer money for years, without publishing anything
Mária Schmidt’s (historian, director-general of the House of Terror Museum) paper in the article titled “Migration, rights of the homosexuals and gender studies — these occupy the contributors of MTA”, in which she attempted to discredit the MTA institutions, she stated that Márton Bene political scientist shares little of his results his last paper is from 2016, so they painted him as if he has been living off tax money for the last two years doing nothing. In contrast to this in 2017 eight, and up until this June 4 studies by him are present in the publication database of the academy (MTMT), which the Figyelő (Schmidt’s paper) studied supposedly. 6 out of the 12 publications were in international magazines and for one of his earlier work he received the prize for the best publication of the MTA TK in 2017. In the words of MTA TK Political Science Institution: “among the publishers cherry-picked by the Figyelő you can find even the most successful contributor of the PTI international publications, this is even seen in the public database of the MTMT”. Bene Márton indicated that the article was manipulative and had no ground in reality, to which by the next day the part about him was nowhere to find in the Figyelő, but by then the “news” took off, so the man brought a suit against them.
Lie #97: Macron denies being homosexual
The pro-government media is very enthusiastic to call Macron gay — just like with Gábor Vona (parliament representative, politician of the Jobbik, right-wing political party). When the Daily Mail wrote about Macron not being in a close, personal relationship with his fighter bodyguard, and he joked about the man “not having the codes for the French atom bombs… he never was my lover”, the 888 (pro-gov news website) interpreted it as “Macron denying his homosexuality”. This was never implied, nor the question even.
Lie #98: Despite the protests, a mosque was built in Zugló, with the help of Gergely Karácsony
Gergely Karácsony was “accused” of supporting the making of an Islamic oratorio in Zugló, as a mayor. Karácsony responded saying: “I have nothing to do with this, the local government of Zugló didn’t need any help to let Hungarian citizens practice their religion.” He added that 12 similar religious communities exist in Budapest, the other 11 in Fidesz lead districts. This didn’t bother the young men that showed up in burkas on the event of MSZP and Párbeszéd (left-wing green party).
Lie #99: According to two thirds of Vienna’s population, János Lázár was right
This was written by Origo, stating that “one of the most well-known mass papers of Vienna, the Kleine Zeitung” asked in an online poll if János Lázár (Fidesz parliament representative and minister) is right for being horrified, since Vienna doesn’t have enough sufficiently white people. 69% of the voters answered, yes, nowadays it’s impossible to walk carefree in the city. The non-representative poll had voters not only from Vienna citizens but from anyone, moreover the paper itself is not based there but in Graz and Klagenfurt. what the Origo stated was simply stupid and dishonest.
Lie #100: All the oppositional media (Index, 444, HVG and Magyar Narancs) are fake news sites
Márta Demeter’s (member of LMP, the liberal, left green party) MP’s writing was based on a — as later found out- false information that Orban’s daughter may have traveled home with a private army jet and was widely shared on a M1. The oppositional media have reported on the rumors, with the state-sponsored media calling them all a fake news factory. Based on my what I read there and based on the experiences working as a journalist at multiple of these media, neither Index nor 444 had a single occasion of forging fake news.
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Disclaimer:
All credit goes to the journalists of 444.hu for writing this article. This is an English translation done by the community of /r/hungary for the sake of international awareness. A few modifications and explanations were added for people that don’t know Hungarian politics. The original sarcastic tone of the article were tuned down by the translator, because the international audience would not get the insider jokes. Links are not present. Please see the original artice for those. But most importantly, the content and the principal message remained the same.
This is a full list, with the craziest lies. Read our shorter article, an extract, with only the craziest lies here.
