“Péter Magyar’s victory in the 2026 general election offers a unique opportunity – the first in 16 years – to break the deadlock on press freedom created by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is classified as a press freedom predator by RSF”, the annual World Press Freedom Index says about Hungary in its 2026 report.
According to the organization’s report, press freedom continued to deteriorate in Hungary over the past year, and the country dropped from 68th to 74th place in their global rankings. This means that, among European Union countries, only Greece and Cyprus are ranked lower. Last year, Bulgaria still ranked behind Hungary, but this has now changed. According to RSF’s global report, press freedom is at a 25-year global low, and for the first time, more than half of all countries have been classified in the “difficult” or “very serious" categories, whereas in 2002, this figure stood at just 13.7 percent. In addition, the number of people living in countries where the state of press freedom is considered “good” has dropped from 20 percent to less than one percent. There are only seven such countries in Europe.
The section on Hungary notes that during Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power, the public media has been transformed into a propaganda machine, and the KESMA foundation, which was “built to serve the Orbán government,” operates roughly 500 national and local newspapers, while several newspapers were taken over or silenced, and pro-government papers were supported with state advertising.
The report noted that while Hungarian journalists rarely face physical assault or unjustified police interrogations, Hungary is the only EU member state where journalists have been arbitrarily monitored using the Pegasus spyware. In addition, as the number of smear campaigns against journalists has grown, critics of Orbán’s former government are being harassed online by Fidesz supporters, the report states.
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