As Peter Magyar prepares to take over as Hungary's new prime minister, one of his first priorities is to dismantle a media system established by his predecessor, Viktor Orban, that served to limit scrutiny and amplify the ruling party's narrative. But experts question whether the new government wants a truly independent press, and what it will take to restore the public's trust.
During its 16 years in power, Orban's government was accused of turning public media into a political instrument, with critics saying it offered little room for opposition voices.
"What we experienced was more subtle curbing of freedoms, which does have an impact on everyday life," says media specialist Eva Bognar of the Central European University's Democracy Institute in Budapest. She says Hungary's current public service media offer "disinformation" and "a lot of Russian propaganda".
Magyar's decisive victory in elections last weekend suggest that voters have had enough of that system.
The incoming prime minister has said Hungary "needs a new media law and a new media authority", and promised his government would suspend state media's news departments until they truly serve the public.
'The propaganda machine Orban has built has a massive impact before any election'
Media mistrust
According to the manifesto that Magyar's centre-right Tisza party campaigned on, the new government will "immediately seize the operations of the news segment of the public service media" until they can "set up a proper public media where the free flow of information is possible".
"We don't know if this will be the case or there's a chance that public service media and the media in general would just serve a different government," says Bognar.
"It would be hugely problematic if it were the narrative that changed but not the structure."
Bognar doesn’t rule out this possibility. "Magyar has been highly critical of independent outlets and made some quite problematic remarks when it came to independent media and independent journalists, calling them propagandists when they criticised him," she says.
Apart from that, she notes that the Orban government has "politicised the media landscape to the extent that it is by many seen as a political actor".
The Orban system first used "legal means" and then "economic means" such as state advertising to reward friendly outlets and weaken critical ones, says Bognar, while also buying up independent media and folding many outlets into the pro-government KESMA conglomerate.
Such interference has left Hungary with widespread scepticism of the media. The 2025 Digital News Report by Oxford University’s Reuters Institute found only 22 percent of respondents in Hungary said they trusted the news most of the time – one of the lowest levels of any country surveyed.
"Journalism, journalists are not trusted, journalism in general is not trusted," Bognar says.
"It will be extremely important for [the new government] to start mending this social fabric that's been so torn apart."
Hungarians' growing anger at living in EU's 'most corrupt state'
Reform drive
Magyar has pledged to protect media freedom as part of a broader reform drive intended to reset Hungary's relations with the European Union, which suspended billions of euros of funding in objection to democratic backsliding under Orban.
Hungary risks losing out on some €10 billion of EU pandemic recovery funds if it fails to implement reforms to strengthen judicial independence and tackle corruption by the end of August.
In a phone call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, Magyar promised to work to restore Hungary's democratic institutions, including by protecting the freedom of the media and academia, Politico reported.
The incoming PM said on Wednesday that his new cabinet could be sworn in by mid-May.
