Hungary’s state television temporarily suspended its news broadcasts on Tuesday, announcing that the decision was part of a restructuring process aimed at making public media “independent and credible.”
The main state television channel M1 displayed a message on a black screen stating: “Public service media cannot lie. However, we apologize for having done so for many years.”
The notice published by M1 said that public media is undergoing restructuring and that news broadcasts have been temporarily suspended.
“Public media is currently being reorganized so that in the future it can be independent and credible. News broadcasts have been temporarily suspended. Please continue following us,” the M1 announcement stated.
The move comes after Prime Minister Péter Magyar pledged to reform state media and end what he described as propaganda linked to former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Magyar, whose party defeated Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party after 16 years in power in the April elections, has begun reorganizing several key structures of the previous government, including state media institutions.
He has said his goal is to restore institutional checks and balances and fight corruption.
“It is a historic day, as the broadcasting of propaganda has ended in public service media,” Magyar wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday, adding that state radio station Kossuth Radio had also stopped broadcasting.
