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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Ashifa Kassam and Flora Garamvolgyi in Budapest

‘Factory of lies’: what will Péter Magyar do about Hungary’s state media?

Viktor Orbán is seen on a TV screen delivering his state of the nation speech in February 2024
Viktor Orbán delivers his state of the nation speech in 2024. Editors were instructed to use specific keywords. Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty

For years they operated as government mouthpieces, using their sprawling reach into homes across Hungary to bolster Viktor Orbán and vilify those he cast as enemies, from the philanthropist George Soros to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But on Saturday, as Péter Magyar’s swearing-in officially ends Orbán’s 16 years in power, the country’s once powerful state media are facing the prospect of going dark.

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