Hungarian Journalists Demand Access to Hospital COVID-19 Wards

Already essentially shut out by a government that critics said has used the COVID-19 pandemic to stifle the press, 28 Hungarian media outlets demanded greater access to hospitals for journalists covering the crisis to report on a surge of cases and deaths.

The request wasn’t granted.

Only Hungary’s state media have been allowed inside COVID wards, and journalists complained the government barred medical staff from talking to them, making it impossible to write about worsening conditions.

“Doctors and nurses are not permitted to speak publicly while members of the press are not allowed into hospitals, so we are unable to report on what happens there,” an open letter signed by the outlets reads.

“Since people are cut off from this information … many are still downplaying the dangers of the pandemic, and are not observing protective measures which is leading to more illness and thus an exacerbation of the pandemic,” it added.

Viktoria Serdult, a reporter for online outlet HVG, one of the letter’s signatories, told The Associated Press that access to such information “is a basic right for all and can also play a role in saving lives.”

“It is not our job to create panic, but the lack of information can have serious consequences,” Serdult said as a surge in COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations has stressed public hospitals.

“This is another nail in the coffin for press freedom and independent journalism in Hungary,” Lydia Gall, Senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch said at the time.

“Doctors and nurses are not free to talk to the public, while journalists are not allowed in hospitals, so we cannot assess what happens there,” the concerned outlets are stating in their letter.

The outlets also asked to be included, either in person or digitally, in the virtual press briefings of Hungary’s Emergency Task Force, which they said cherry picks questions sent in advance to avoid being questioned

“For me it is baffling why they did not introduce a system that would make it possible for journalists to attend these events online,” Serdult said.

The pandemic has spread although Hungary has one of the most successful vaccine campaigns in the EU, passing two million people, more than 20 percent of the population and with another 250,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V doses arriving.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs wrote on Facebook that “we should cure (patients) in hospitals instead of using cameras,” and accused “left-wing portals” of spreading fake news and “discrediting the health care system.”

“This is a dark day for press freedom in Hungary,” said Scott Griffen, Deputy Director of the International Press Institute (IPI). “Viktor Orbán now has yet another tool in his arsenal for silencing what remains of the country’s independent press.”

Several days earlier, Council of Europe (COE) Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, warned that, “The combined effects of a politically controlled media regulatory authority and distortionary state intervention in the media market have eroded media pluralism and freedom of expression in Hungary.”

A COE statement added he was “worried and alarmed by the sustained smear campaigns against human rights defenders and investigative journalists, which are carried out with the aim of stifling civil society and sending a clear message that there will be prompt retaliation against any form of criticism of the government.”

The EU has limited itself to statements, press releases and tweets while critics said Orban has run roughshod over press freedom and tried to eliminate independent media to have pro-government outlets.

In September, 2020, an IPI report said that Orban, waging a decade-long war against the press, was using the pandemic to tighten his government's grip on independent media and hide mishandling COVID-19.

“Orbán can see that the press poses a serious threat to the governmental popularity via revealing the mistakes in handling the virus”, Péter Krekó, Director of Political Capital Institute, a Budapest-based think tank, told IPI.