Dozens of international media outlets referencing and quoting Atlatszo

Dozens of foreign media outlets and research centers referenced and quoted stories written by Atlatszo in March and April this year. Our journalists were also quoted by international media several times as experts about the political situation and the state of press freedom in Hungary.

Many international journalists visited Hungary in the weeks before the April 8 parliamentary election and reported on the political climate in the country. Most of them were surprised by the anti-Soros and anti-immigration posters and billboards that could be seen practically on every corner and in every bus stop.

Thus we are not surprised that our story that was quoted the most often in foreign media was the one where we added up the numbers and realized that the Hungarian government spent €40 million on anti-Soros propaganda in 2017. The writer of the story, Katalin Erdélyi, has been tracking how the Hungarian government is spending taxpayer money on propaganda for more than a year.

Erdélyi’s story was quoted by an AP story titled ‘Far-right, even racist views go meainstream in Central Europe.’ This AP report was picked up by many outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Taipei Times.

The Atlatszo story about the huge amount of money spent on propaganda was also quoted by the pre-election political summary published by The Intercept and by the election coverage of NBC News as well.

The European edition of Politico also quoted an Atlatszo story about the anti-Soros propaganda, but they quoted the most recent one that reported that in December 2017 and January 2018 the government spent another €8.1 million on its ‘Stop Soros’ campaign – on top of the €40 million that we previously reported.

An Atlatszo story from 2012, written by András Becker, was quoted by The New York Times in the feature story ‘How Viktor Orban Bends Hungarian Society to His Will.’ Patrick Kingsley quoted a story that covered how the Hungarian government is channeling taxpayer money to NGOs and organizations that are willing to supports its policies.

The Daily Beast referenced and built upon our story by Anita Komuves that uncovered that the Hungarian government hired two Israeli political operatives to do lobbying work in the United States. One of the co-chairs of the company, Tzvika Brot, was Donald Trump’s campaign chief in Israel.

Another story by Anita Komuves was published on Vsquare.org, a site that brings together investigative journalist from the Visegrad region (Poland, Slovakia, The Czech Republic and Hungary). The article explored how the government-funded Hungarian media empire is spreading Russian-type fake news. The story was quoted by the pre-election feature published by CNN and it was also referenced by Anne Applebaum in her analysis published in The Washington Post.

Besides the above, Atlatszo editors and reporters were interviewed by foreign media several times.

Atlatszo editor Tamas Bodoky was interviewed by Belgian De Standaard.

Anita Komuves was quoted by  The Intercept, CNN and gave an interview to the  European Center for Press and Media Freedom. She was also quoted by Lithuanian outlet 15min.lt and by the Czech public service radio.

Attila Batorfy talked to The Daily Beast about the ownership structure of the Hungarian media. He spoke about the political climate with the reporter of Slovenian paper Vecer and talked about press freedom in Hungary with Lithuanian outlet Lietuvos Zinios.

Previously, Batorfy was quoted by Vice where he talked about attacks on press freedom in Hungary and he was also quoted by the analysis by the International Press Institute.

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