Translation: Andrea Horváth Kávai
Dear readers, dear supporters!
Telex is largely supported by its readers. The reason why we are able to do so many great things to keep the country informed is only because of your support.
Thank you!
From now on, at the end of each month, we will be publishing a summary of all we had done that month thanks to your support.
As receiving regular support is a prerequisite of our existence, we are asking you to support us regularly, if you are able to do so. And if you consider our work important, then ask your friends to do the same!
Below is a list of the most important events of the year so far. These are things that happened to us, things that we consider important, and things we would like to share with you:
War broke out in Ukraine. Our newsroom switched to 24/7 mode, and we were able to send a few teams into Ukraine to report from the scene. At the time of the writing of this letter, 6 of our colleagues are in Ukraine.
We are starting our biggest endeavour so far: Transtelex. In short, a news website called Transindex has been an important part of the Transylvanian public sphere, but due to political reasons it has become impossible for them to continue functioning as an independent news source. They informed us about this, and we decided to do something new: to try and go on together, committed to freedom and independence. Since we believe that the most important mission of Telex is to establish and maintain free press, the same will be true for Transtelex. The Hungarians living in Transylvania will also be voting in the upcoming Hungarian parliamentary elections on 3 April, and it makes a difference whether they have access to free, independent, local news sources, which also inform them about happenings in domestic politics in Hungary. Transtelex will make this easily accessible for them! You can support this project here, and we will, of course, also inform you when the news site becomes operational. Meanwhile, you may follow the Transtelex Facebook page here. (only in Hungarian)
We screened our first bigger film. Our colleague, András Földes went to Afghanistan last year after the Americans left the country, and everything collapsed, and the Taliban took over the country. Before the film was published on Telex, we held an exclusive screening in a cinema for our supporters who were fastest to sign up for it. If you would like to take part in a similar event in the future, be our supporter!
We received a few rewards:
- Our photographers received a photo journalism award
- The joint work of Csongor Körömi (Telex.hu) and Árpád Kulcsár (Transindex.ro) about the educational migration across borders was highlighted at the Quality Journalism Awards in Hungary
- The article of Luca Pintér photographed by Orsi Ajpek about a Hungarian gay couple who adopted twins was also highlighted. Our team followed the story of this couple for almost a year.
- The journalist (a former colleague of ours from Index) of Direkt36, which is a strategic partner of Telex was given the Transparency-Soma award which is given to investigative journalists.
- At the end of December, the authors of Telex’s article about the Budapest-Belgrade railway construction received the Quality Journalism Award.
Telex English shifted to a higher gear. Those interested in news from Hungary will be able to find even more impartial, accurate news on Telex from now on. Do inform your friends who read the news in English, that with our new colleague we are giving new momentum to our English language coverage of the most important news from and about Hungary!
Our special coverage of the elections has begun! The parliamentary elections on 3 April are going to be one of the most important events of the year. Naturally, we are covering this as a topic of special significance, so all the news and analyses are available on one page. We are regularly updating and beautifying this special annex page, (only in Hungarian at this time) and we promise that on 3 April, (as well as before and after), you will be able to find all important information about the elections here.
The latest version of our app now includes an election notification channel, so subscribe to it if you don't want to miss out on our election coverage. You may download and refresh our app here (for now, only in Hungarian): Download from the Play Store // Download from the App Store.
Leading up to the elections, our editor in chief, Szabolcs Dull will write an election newsletter each week. Every Saturday (Monday for our readers who follow us in English), he will gather the most important campaign news of the week in 5 points, and provide a short explanation and political analysis.
There will be no political advertisements on Telex. From a financial standpoint this was a difficult and painful decision, as the parties would have most likely spent a lot of money on advertisement with us (as well), but keeping our independence in mind, we came to the conclusion that we do not wish to provide for our operations through political parties’ advertisements, but want to only depend on our readers’ support and some market advertisements. In order to make this decision as painless as possible, please, support us!
We started an internship program and it’s in full swing. Last year we committed to teaching and providing work for ten talented youngsters, and this is going on with full force. Our interns are learning and working, with more and more of their articles being published on Telex. They are our future!
We started a webshop where our first book can be purchased, as well as loads of good quality Telex-branded clothing and various accessories. Check it out here! We are planning to add some new items as well.
In closing, allow us to once again thank you for your faithful support! And if you are reading this and are not a Telex supporter yet, but are able to devote a small monthly sum for this, we’d like to ask you to consider becoming a regular supporter of ours, so that the accuate, curious and critical Telex can keep on going ahead!
It only depends on you!