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The Hungarian internet TV fighting 'propaganda'
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Marton Gulyas, manager of online tv channel 'Partizan' poses for a photo at their studio in Budapest on March 30, 2022. (AFP/Attila Kisbenedek)
T
heir studio is makeshift and their funds are largely crowd-sourced, yet Hungary's top YouTube politics channel is one of the few voices left in the country critical of the government.
Partizan has become essential viewing for hundreds of thousands of Hungarians ahead of Sunday's general elections in which nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces his tightest fight for political survival in years.
Founder and host Marton Gulyas, who produces at least one discussion, debate show or in-depth interview a day, says the purpose is to "liberate the political imagination of the people".
"Public media here has no ambition of creating public service content, only spreading government propaganda," Gulyas, a bearded and lanky 35-year-old, told AFP.
"It doesn't work for the people as it should, instead it destroys and intoxicates public discourse and debate," he said.
Partizan's studio is in a dilapidated, red-brick warehouse on the outskirts of Budapest. The channel commands a fraction of the roughly 350-million-euro taxpayer-funded budget lavished annually on Hungary's public broadcaster MTVA.
MTVA, who enjoys a state-of-the-art headquarters just a kilometre (mile) from Partizan's -- faithfully toes the government line of the day.
