At a time most of the Editors looked the other way when their colleagues were laid off in the pretext of Coronavirus, scribes in Hungary had stood firmly with their boss in crises.
Over 80 journalists from Index.hu, Hungary’s most-read news portal and a rare independent voice in a media landscape increasingly controlled by allies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, had walked out in protest against the removal of its editor-in-chief.
On Wednesday, its editor-in-chief Szabolcs Dull was fired, with management claiming he had leaked internal documents to other media. The events marked the “destruction” of yet another pillar of press freedom.
That prompted three senior editors to resign on Friday, followed by more than 80 journalists — the overwhelming majority of the newsroom.
In a statement, the site’s journalists condemned Dull’s dismissal as “an overt attempt to apply pressure on Index”.
Miklos Hargitai, president of the Hungarian journalists’ association, said that the events meant “another dominant Hungarian institution is in the process of being dismantled, occupied and destroyed by (Orban’s right-wing) Fidesz” party.
Index tweeted photos of distraught journalists in tears and hugging each other as the resignations were announced. Index has roughly two million readers per day in a country of just under 10 million.
