Hungary’s two political “tops dogs” aren’t particularly known for their ability to get good press for themselves in the foreign media. But two pieces in the Financial Times this week show they can still manage to hoodwink the occasional unsuspecting journalist.
First up is a piece yesterday from local stringer/staffer (and former Budapest Sun writer) Thomas Escritt, entitled “Attacks on gypsies worries Hungary PM”, which really should have been called “Hungary PM says he is worried about attacks on gypsies even though his government stood by a police chief who blamed all crime on the gypsies.” I don’t doubt that Gyurcsány feels “sick” about Hungarians’ hating on the Roma, but making this the focus of the story is also a good reason to feel sick.
But Escritt’s lame scribbling is nothing compared to Monday’s howler by FT East Europe editor Stefan Wagstyl, who apparently pulled one of those “stand aside son, I’ll handle this” moves on his paper’s local man when the opportunity arose for a face-to-face with Gyurcsi nemesis Viktor Orbán.
The resulting piece, Crisis opens door to comeback in Hungary”, is appalling not just because its headline is demonstrably false – Orbán’s “comeback” began when mortgage-backed securities were still a hot new investment class – but because he was so obviously snowed by the Fidesz leader’s well-known penchant for telling people exactly what they want to hear. In this case, Orbán seems to have correctly figured that Wagstyl wanted to hear about how Fidesz is mostly concerned with cutting public administration and taxes. No where in the piece is it mentioned that Orbán and his party spend most of their time attacking the government for any moves it makes that might eventually lead to tax cuts or a slashing of red tape, and that he is well-known locally for chumming up to foreign business-types and later the same day decrying Hungary’s enslavement to international capital. Which seems at least as important as pointing out that the “energetic” Orbán is a father of five “who regularly plays professional football.” Not to mention an occasionally world-class game of media management…
