It seems that the muzzling of media and interfering in the functioning and running of media houses have become the new normal across the world from Turkey to India to Hungary. Index is the main news website of Hungary. Recently a large number of its employees resigned en-masse. The news website was much revered in the Hungarian national discourse, where its articles were read out over the Television-based news-room debates. The absence of interference in media is signified by a natural and unbiased course of reporting of various events and developments in a particular country. Last month, the editor-in-chief of Index asserted that the freedom of the news website was in danger from external interference. The situation became more suspicious when there were rumors about a pre-set date of the launch of an article about a pro-government businessman. This followed by recent firings and ‘resigning out of protest’ from the website.

The reign of the current Hungarian prime minister has been symptomatic of the fall in the standards of investigative journalism in the country. Victor Orban has been the prime minister of Hungary since 2010. He has been the president of the right-wing national conservative party of Hungary -the Fidesz.  It has been accused that gradually the ownerships of various media outlets are being concentrated in the hands of the members of the Fidesz party. Last December, nominees from the party were elected to the state media council of Hungary. This clearly shows the attempts made by the regime to convert the media into its mouthpiece. This looks like a parallel universe story when compared with the Indian situation. Under the current regime, Hungary has fallen in its ranking of annual press freedom index, which further signifies the relevance of the Index debacle. It has been found that not only the news materials but also the ads are being subsumed under the ruling party agenda. The freedom of press suffers a further loss when the Hungarian news website ‘Index’ fell as the last man on duty as an independent reporter.