FIVE YEARS AFTER HUNGARY’S FIRST multiparty elections, the country still lacks comprehensive legislation to safeguard media freedoms and regulate media in a market economy. Communist-era media laws remain in effect as political parties fight for control of news organizations. In the past five years, Hungarian Radio and Hungarian Television have been subjected to severe political pressure as the government and the opposition have struggled to gain access to them. Because the broadcast media are still in state hands, the government has been able to conduct politically motivated purges. The government has had fewer opportunities to exert political pressure on the press because the print media have been largely privatized.
