The local elections were held in Serbia on 2 June. The results of the elections were analysed by the Szabad Magyar Szó news portal (link here and here) and the Észverés podcast of the Autonomija portal.
Dr. Bálint Pásztor, President of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, reacted to the analyses in his Facebook post. Pásztor, with his disparaging style, twisted the notion of independent, objective, and investigative journalism. By putting the word “journalist” in quotation marks, he directly questioned the professionalism of media workers. Thus, he attempted to belittle the work of journalists whose reporting differed in tone from the Alliance’s narrative, and who, beyond the party’s propaganda of success, drew attention to the downside of the election results.
Dr. Bálint Pásztor is fully entitled to express his own views and challenge the analyses, as long as his arguments are not intended to divert attention, but to respond to the aspects that may arise. However, by stigmatising and demonising journalists, by questioning their freedom of expression based on the best of their knowledge, and by belittling the importance of investigative journalism, Pásztor has crossed a line.
Átlátszó Vajdaság feels affected in the case, given that Bálint Pásztor uses the term “investigative” as a recurring motif, and tries to discredit independent journalism by lumping together all critical Hungarian media in Vojvodina.
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) reacted in a statement to the post of the Alliance’s President. The organisation “most strongly condemns the insults that Bálint Pásztor, the President of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, has expressed to journalists who report in the Hungarian language, simply because he does not like the way they have analysed the results achieved by his party in the recent local elections in the towns and villages of Vojvodina”.
The NDNV also “calls on the President of the Alliance to publicly apologise for humiliating journalists and warns that his action is a direct and clear attack on journalists and freedom of the press, whereas the role of the media in society is to rectify authority and work for the public good”.
The editorial staff of Átlátszó Vajdaság agrees with the statement of the NDNV and expresses its solidarity with the affected colleagues.
Virág Gyurkovics, founding editor-in-chief of Átlátszó Vajdaság
The text was originally published in Hungarian on 06. 06. 2024.