By Noura Kaddaoui
Péter Magyar’s election as Hungary’s new Prime Minister has been widely described as a new beginning for the country. Yet much of the reporting has focused on what the result means for Europe, constitutional repair, and elite politics, with far less attention to Roma communities, migrant workers, women, LGBTQ+ people, and journalists who have carried the heaviest burden of Hungary’s democratic decline.
Péter Magyar’s (Tisza) landslide victory over Viktor Orbán (Fidesz) was quickly framed as a historic break after 16 years of rule. While the focus on Hungary’s new political era helps explain why the election mattered across Europe, it also pushed minorities to the side. Little attention was paid to what a change in government might mean for Roma communities, migrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, and independent journalists, who remained largely outside the main narrative.
The Roma blind spot
Roma communities were among the clearest absences in the election story. Even when minority issues surfaced during the election, coverage remained uneven. Kata Horváth from Mérték Media Monitor says that Hungarian coverage of the Roma minority remains thin and reactive. “The Roma only get talked about when it involves a huge scandal or problem.”
Fidesz had on paper rejected immigration as the solution for labour shortage, with Minister János Lázár saying that Roma people should serve as an ‘internal reserve’ for unpopular jobs such as cleaning toilets on intercity trains. This remark prompted protests, while Péter Magyar said Lázár had “crossed all boundaries”.
Sándor Ádám Gorni, a political scientist who has written about freedom of assembly in Hungary, argues that this lack of reporting reflects “a symbolic blind spot in European media”.
“Roma communities have long faced centuries of exclusion, poverty, housing segregation, discrimination in education, employment, and systematic racism,” he says.
Horváth points to years of rhetoric tying poverty and marginalisation to Roma identity in the public imagination. “The Fidesz-aligned media have been telling Hungarians for years that Roma people are harmful. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to change that narrative and mindset in Hungarian society.”
The Council of Europe documented a “worrying pattern of exclusionary rhetoric” targeting Roma in Hungary. The report stresses that such language is especially harmful when voiced by political actors.
The anti-migrant paradox
Migrant workers formed another underreported part of the campaign. Gorni called this one of the most paradoxical issues of the Orbán years. “Orbán has built his political brand on anti-immigration rhetoric, even though Hungary has simultaneously experienced a 53% increase in its foreign-born population in the past decade. A lot of guest workers, largely from Asia, are working in labour-intensive sectors.” Gorni noted that he saw little reporting on that contradiction, whether in general coverage or in relation to the election.
One of the few sources to address migrant workers was The Oxford Student, which criticised Magyar for inflammatory comments about Filipino guest workers. The article warns against treating his victory as proof of inclusive political change.
Women beyond the family frame
Women’s rights received limited attention during the election, despite deeply rooted gender inequality in Hungarian politics and public life. Horváth argues that neither Fidesz nor Tisza addressed women beyond family policy. Both parties mainly spoke about women through maternity, childcare, and tax benefits.
“Women should be recognised not just as mothers, but as full people in their own right,” Horváth says. The European Institute for Gender Equality likewise notes that Hungary has shifted from gender mainstreaming to “family mainstreaming”.
Horváth also links the weak minority coverage to the lack of women and minority journalists in the media, adding that this problem is not unique to Hungary.
Women’s participation in media and politics is not only shaped by underrepresentation but also by hostility. Women who criticise Orbán’s government have faced online harassment, misogynistic disinformation, and doxxing through what #ShePersisted calls Hungary’s “perfect propaganda machine”.
LGBTQ+ rights without clarity
LGBTQ+ issues drew more attention than some other minority concerns, largely because a Pride ban and wider attack on freedom of assembly had already attracted international media attention. Even so, the campaign offered little clarity about what a Magyar government would actually mean for LGBTQ+ people in Hungary.
Kata Horváth says Péter Magyar deliberately avoided divisive topics, including the LGBTQ+ community, to appeal to as many voters as possible. According to The Dissident News, his only clear public statement on the issue was “a generic defence of freedom of assembly”. In international coverage, PinkNews similarly noted that he had not campaigned on significant changes to Orbán-era policies and questioned whether his victory would amount to “a win for LGBTQ+ rights”.
For Horváth, that silence carried weight in a country where anti-LGBTQ+ restrictions have included wrapping LGBTQ+ books in foil and restricting their sale. Despite hope for the future, Horváth does not expect minority rights to become an early priority. “Fidesz has spent more than 10 years creating campaigns and laws against the LGBTQ+ community and mongering fear against them.”
Gorni, who has written about the Pride ban, says this was one of the few minority issues that did receive some attention, because Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ measures fit a broader “far-right playbook where leaders weaponise them and turn them into political targets”. At the same time, he stresses that much of the reporting is “still centred on what it means for the EU and on power politics,” while the wider social consequences received less attention.
Independent journalism under attack
Independent journalists helped expose the scandal that opened political space for Magyar’s rise. Horváth points out that “Magyar would not be here without independent journalists”. She refers to reporting by outlets 444.hu and Direkt36 on the presidential pardon scandal. Former President Katalin Novák granted clemency to a man convicted of covering up child sexual abuse in a state-run children’s home. The case triggered national outrage and became a major scandal for Fidesz.
A 2026 Mérték Media Monitor report describes “legal, administrative, and political pressure that preserves democratic form while undermining media freedom”. The authors warn that independent outlets survive “in spite of the system, not because of it”.
Human Rights Watch reported that in 2025, journalists were “detained, charged, physically obstructed, and targeted by defamatory campaigns”. A study by authors including Kata Horváth also found that Hungarian public service media had adopted a strongly pro-government editorial line. Public service news repeated ruling party messaging, sidelined or distorted opposing views, and spread misleading narratives on the European Union.
Why minority reporting was weak
Minority reporting remained limited because some Hungarian newsrooms and independent media prioritised political crisis over social depth for years. Horváth of Mérték Media Monitor explains that journalists often lacked the space to work consistently on minority issues or social inclusion because they were “surviving under hostile conditions”. Instead, much of their energy went into covering corruption, authoritarian measures, and attacks on media freedom.
The media system made that harder: around 80% of the Hungarian media was controlled by Fidesz allies. Reporters Without Borders describes the system Orbán built as “a true media empire subject to his party’s orders”. This gave pro-government outlets the power to shape the news agenda and frame minorities through conflict, suspicion, or silence.
The European Digital Media Observatory describes the 2026 campaign as “almost a compendium of what should not happen in a democracy before a vote,” marked by AI-generated videos, fabricated stories, troll amplification, and pro-government disinformation networks.
Beyond the usual script
Both Horváth and Gorni are clear that inclusive reporting requires a different approach. Horváth says foreign journalists should talk to people on the ground and share their experiences, while carefully considering what publication can mean for vulnerable sources.
Gorni urges journalists to go beyond the surface level and obvious frames and keep covering Hungary with nuance. “It has been an important case study for democratic backsliding, and it is now an equally important one for how such flawed democracies could, in the long run, rebuild.”
If journalism keeps returning to the same institutional script, it risks reproducing the hierarchy of attention that sustained the Orbán years. A democratic transition without a narrative shift will leave the same exclusions intact.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any questions or comments should be addressed to the editor at [email protected] of the Media Diversity Institute (MDI).
