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PM Orbán’s international press conference

January 12th, 2019

A pro-government and a left-wing analyst offer diametrically opposed assessments of PM Orbán’s Thursday press conference. One criticises journalists for their hostile questions, while the other complains that the PM’s Office refused entry refused to some critical outlets.

On Thursday, the government’s weekly press conference was held by Prime Minister Orbán.  

The editor-in-chief of Magyar Idők Ottó Gajdics welcomes PM Orbán’s decision to engage with ‘hostile journalists who play the role of the opposition’. The pro-government columnist thinks that PM Orbán gave clear answers on important issues including migration, the economy and the European Parliamentary elections. At the same time, the Prime Minister remained calm and responded elegantly to what Gajdics sees as provocative and tendentious criticism levelled against him by politically biased, hateful and cynical journalist ‘inquisitors’. Gajdics finds it sad that opposition-leaning journalists live in an alternative reality and cannot understand that for Hungary, the main challenge is to stop migration and preserve national sovereignty.

In Népszava, Róbert Friss lambasts the Prime Minister for ‘reiterating the government’s propaganda clichés’. In the left-wing commentator’s interpretation, PM Orbán used the opportunity to spread his ‘authoritarian, populist, anti-immigrant, fear-mongering slogans’ that have nothing to do with reality. Friss also notes that some media outlets were denied entrance. Friss interprets this as another indication of the Prime Minister’s unwillingness to engage with his critics.

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