Index.hu is the most popular news portal in Hungary. Its history harks back to 1995 when a local sociologist created Internetto, a website that was covering IT-related issues. Index has been operating under its current name since 1999.
Media assets
News portal: Index.hu
State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private (CaPr)
Ownership and governance
Index.hu is owned by Foundation for Hungarian Progress (MFA), an entity controlled by Laszlo Bodolai who has worked for a long time as Index’s lawyer. This structure, co-owned by two companies in the hands of local independent entrepreneurs, was believed that it would secure the editorial independence of the website. However, the website’s business activity (essentially, the management of its advertising revenues) is handled by another company named Indamedia.
In a move aimed at indirectly taking control of the portal, Indamedia was acquired in July 2020 by Miklos Vaszily, a businessman known for his close association with the Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Vaszily was the oligarch who organized over the course of the past decade the purchase of private media companies that are now part of the Fidesz-run media empire supportive of the government.
Source of funding and budget
Thanks to its popularity, Index.hu has been funding itself through commercial revenues, mostly advertising. It also organized in its recent history a few successful crowdfunding campaigns.
Editorial independence
As the media empire controlled by the Hungarian government through their oligarchs has grown since 2010, Index remained the last major independent media in Hungary. Although the portal created a governance structure (the Foundation that owns the portal) to deter attacks on its editorial independence, the purchase of the company in charge of managing the website’s commercial funding (the financial base of the website) in July 2020 sounded the death knell for Index’s editorial independence.
In a first move after the deal, the president of the board, Bodolai agreed to have the portal’s editor sacked, a move that was followed by the resignation of nearly the entire Index newsroom. That is seen by local journalists and experts as the end of Index’s editorial independence.
The CEO of Index.hu is Akos Starcz, is linked to businesses controlled by Fidesz, the political power of the prime minister Viktor Orban, and a staunch supporter of Orban’s oligarchy. He sits on the board of other companies owned by Fidesz-associated businessmen (such as the book publishing company Libri).
There is no domestic statute and no mechanism of independent assessment or oversight that would validate the independence of Index after the resignation en masse of its journalists in July 2020.
October 2023