Our mission

The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation aims at enhancing the development of an environmentally aware, participatory democratic society and institutional system by strengthening and supporting the civil environmental movements.

The foundation promotes the development of the environmental movement trough providing grants, training, fellowships and technical assistance where necessary.

Review of civil media coverage in the period 2003–2007

Monitoring media coverage is one of the basic elements in the enforcement of the interests of non-governmental organizations. The response of the media to events related to NGOs has an outstanding importance to both civil society experts and decision-makers. Therefore, from 1 August 2003 the HEPF has been continuously measuring and analyzing the coverage of NGOs and the civil sector in the Hungarian media.

The following is a summary of our experiences and comments that can be taken from the summaries of the last 3.5 years of monitoring civil media coverage.

I. The examined period, the reviewed media

In the period between 1 August 2003 and 28 February 2007 HEPF has been following and analyzing civil events that were covered by the media on a weekly basis. The examination covered printed and electronic media, national and local newspapers as well.

The summaries – and some studies serving as a basis for them – and the coverage of NGOs were not primarily evaluated from a qualitative aspect. Our evaluations were based mainly on quantitative aspects, taking into account in every case the weighting among the coverages according to the Hungarian consumer – reader, listener – habits. Moreover, in the course of analyzing media coverage of the more significant civic issues, comments of journalists related to potential value judgments and reactions of the public are also indicated.

Moreover, it has to be emphasized that there were more relevant civil actions in the examined period, that can be regarded as successful initiatives, but which did not reach the wide public.

The following is the list of covered media

National Televisions: ATV, Duna TV, Echo TV, hírTV, m1, RTL Klub, tv2

National and News Broadcasts: Budapest Rádió, Civil Rádió, Danubius Rádió, Gazdasági Rádió, InfoRádió, Klubrádió, Kossuth Rádió, Rádió C, Rádió Café, Sláger Rádió

National Dailies: Blikk, Magyar Hírlap, Magyar Nemzet, Metro, Napi Ász, Népszabadság, Népszava, Színes Bulvár Lap

Local Dailies: 24 Óra, Alföldi Lapok, Békés Megyei Napló, Déli Hírlap, Délmagyarország, Délvilág, Dunántúli Napló, Dunaújvárosi Hírlap, Észak-Magyarország, Fejér Megyei Hírlap, Hajdú-Bihari Napló, Heves Megyei Hírlap, Jászkun Krónika, Kecskeméti Lapok, Kelet-Magyarország, Kisalföld, Komárom-Esztergom Megyei Hírlap, Miskolci Tipp, Napló, Nógrád Megyei Hírlap, Nyíregyházi Tipp, Petőfi Népe, Somogyi Hírlap, Szerencsi Hírek, Tolnai Népújság, Új Heti Hírnök, Új Néplap, Új Pest Megyei Hírlap, Vas Népe, Zalai Hírlap

Webpages: Index, [origo], Online versions of dailies, televisions and radios

Weeklies: 168 Óra, Élet és Irodalom, Figyelő, Kreatív, Hetek, HVG, Heti Válasz, Magyar Demokrata, Magyar Fórum, Magyar Narancs, Üzleti 7, Vasárnap Reggel, Vasárnapi Hírek

II. Increasing civil presence in the media

In the course of the last years NGOs have received an extremely significant role in the Hungarian media: media has covered more initiatives of civil society organizations; journalists have more frequently asked the opinion of the civil specialists on the issues of social changes and the amendments of articles. As a result of deeper cooperation with the administrative authorities, remarks of the NGOs were more present in issues like consumer protection, human rights or environmental protection. At the same time, it became clear in several cases, that the wide public consultations initiated by the administrative authorities towards NGOs turned out to be primarily PR-events, thus their role in the media regarding coverage was more significant than the actual professional results of the cooperation.

Generally, it can be said, that in the last years a positive image had been created about NGOs; their professional remarks appeared in the media because of explicit demands of journalists and editors – and not because of the media-activities of the civil society organizations themselves. Constant civil actors of the news and background programmes of the national media are e.g. the Energy Club Environmental Association (supported by the HEPF) or Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) and Protect the Future that work together with the HEPF on several issues.

At the same time, the media and also the public had to face several interpretation difficulties with the media coverage of NGOs. As a result of the Hungarian public-political events – in relation to the campaign before the parliamentary elections and to the reform measures of the second Gyurcsány government – several groupings presented themselves as civil society organizations and transmitted the opinion of the political adversary towards the public. As a result of this, “civil organizations” – formulating political messages – have significantly discredited themselves in the media and – hitting the real civil society organizations – caused the depreciation of almost the whole sector in certain periods. (One part of) the media – although referring to the fact in their writings that these organizations primarily belong to the sphere of influence of the parties – still defined the above mentioned organizations as NGOs.

Our evaluation between 1 August 2003 and 28 February 2007 indoubtly proves that: Hungarian media reports about the civil sector have been restructured in several aspects.

1. Besides local and county media, the national media started to increasingly cover reports about the civil sector. Generally, it can be stated, that national media reported relatively more about civil news carrying relevant leading advocacy messages and initiatives (for example about demonstrations, the sending of open letters, petitions etc.) while local newspapers transmitted local information to a primarily – geographically – smaller community (for example about local cultural organizations etc.). Besides this, certainly, the more significant national news were also covered in the county newspapers, but their importance was usually smaller comparative to the local civil news.
2. Thanks to the characteristics of the printed and electronic media, the number of NGO-related reports in the printed media was always higher; moreover, the length of the news was also very different from the electronic media. Longer coverage was usually characteristic for the written and online media, while television-channels and radio broadcasters reported shortly about the civil initiatives.
3. In the first year of the examined period, the number of news relevant from the perspective of civil advocacy activities was relatively low (100–150 coverages monthly), and – after a rapid increase – it stopped at 250–280 coverages per month. At the same time, the number of news not relevant from the perspective of civil advocacy has also increased.

The civil issues and events that are relevant from the perspective advocacy and interest representation – and also considered being important by editors – resulted in the appearance of even longer articles and reports, while others only received coverage in the form of “minus news”.

III. Diversity of civic issues covered in the press

Approaching the year 2007, civic issues have become so diverse and were covered to such a great extent in the Hungarian media, that from a communicational aspect they often invalidated each other. At the same time, several civic issues appeared in this period that – by continuous, strong media presence – reached wide range of the society.

In the period between 2003 and 2007 issues of civil financing were regularly present in the media; material difficulties – endangering the sustainability of the civic sector – and new opportunities for funding emerged. In this topic – in the course of 2003 and 2004 – issues around the NCF and following the resources of the European Union operative programmes proved to be the most popular ones – also as regards media coverage. Another outstanding issue was the financing by local municipalities, mainly reported by local media.

Protest actions – that have been started by environmentalist organizations and later collected a wider circle of supporters – generated significant media coverage. The most successful initiative can be associated undoubtly to the “greens”. Protests against the NATO-radar at Zengő – both from communication and content aspects – ended successfully. Since the start of the media monitoring in August 2003 no month has passed by without raising the question of Zengő, or examining the environmental effects of the NATO-radar.

Coverages related to a possible catastrophe on the Tisza river – resulting from the cyanide extraction procedures of the planned gold mine in Rosia Montana – and other long term environmental effects, or news about the deficiencies in the nuclear power plant of Paks, and related civil battles for access to information about the events were of great significance, too.

Certainly, creative civil initiatives and shocking PR-actions were also covered and reserved an important space among the reports about civil initiatives. As in every part of the world, the media has followed the actions of international organizations with attention, like those of the Hungarian branches of Greenpeace and Amnesty International. The Hungarian organizations did not fall behind their foreign counterparts as regards shocking demonstrations and actions: provoking demonstrations of the NANE Women’s Rights Association, struggling against violence within the family, or the regular actions of the ‘Hemp-seed’ Association fighting for a more liberal drug regulation, or the initiatives of the ÓVÁS! (Protect!) Association for the rehabilitation of the Pest Jewish quarter, have all received great interest.

Political initiatives of greater importance also generated real civil or essentially political actions. In the beginning of 2005, the agrarian protests and during 2006 organizations fighting against the economic measures of the Gyurcsány government had significant media coverage as a consequence.

IV. Deficiencies in civil journalism

Despite the fact that civil issues have been covered increasingly in the media, through continuous restructuring of the editorial offices and the structure of the programmes, the number of programmes dealing with NGOs and the most important issues that are taken up by them, is very low and constantly decreases. Because of its obligations, public media provides surface for civil – mainly environmentalist – programmes, however in the case of commercial media the number of civil programmes is evanescent; and still existing “civil” programmes – such as programmes presenting questions of environmental protection and equality of opportunities – are vanishing.

Moreover, in the political editorial offices the number of journalists occupied with the civil non-profit sector has diminished, as the journalists left the editorial office (for example Magyar Hírlap), or took over other topics, effacing civil issues. Unfortunately there is an opinion spreading among journalists, namely that it is less relevant to deal with the activities of the NGOs as a “civil journalist”, as the sector itself (just like trade unions) is becoming more and more meaningless – and so does journalism related to these activities.

The negative effects of the tensions in fall 2006 on civil society coverage are expected to disappear in the near future; as the analyses of the opinion research institutes account for that “by January, the general political mood seemed to have shifted back to normal business: the dramatic commentaries and pictures started to fade away in the minds of people and political preferences were again shaped by general miscontent”. (Medián Opinion and Market Research Institute: Borúra ború – Januári felmérés a politikai közhangulatról).

According to these analyses, HEPF trusts that the political apathy will result in favourable media structure and opportunity for civil society organizations to enlarge their media coverage again. At the same time we could not expect the return to the level of normal media coverage in 2005 for a while. In addition, in the long term perspective, the Hungarian NGOs can only be successful in the constantly changing media environment, if they learn how to communicate more effectively. Instead of organizing reactive, weak actions, make innovative ones.