Our only source of power is our audience

Let me start with the bad news.

Yes, you should brace yourself for the worst. History has taught us that even centuries-old institutions can crumble under the weight of political forces that are ruthless and have sufficient resources to carry out their plans. Just ask the churches, universities, businesses, and civil society organizations how well they did under communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe after World War II.

Hungary, where I run the investigative reporting nonprofit Direkt36, is still a much freer place now than it was during those dark times. But if the 14-year (and still counting) rule of Viktor Orbán can provide any guidance on what is waiting for independent journalsts under Donald Trump’s second term, you can expect increasingly aggressive propaganda campaigns against you, attacks on your business operations, and maybe even some spying on you and your sources.

So, arm yourselves with the best lawyers who can protect you against politically motivated legal attacks and can challenge unjust regulations. Increase your physical and digital security. Maybe even team up with your competitors to make a case to the people that independent, fact-based journalism is a public service.

You should also realize that what you are facing now is not a uniquely American problem. Many of your colleagues around the world have been struggling with these challenges for years. Reach out to them and ask them about their experience. Maybe they have useful advice on what to do and what not to do, the latter of which can be equally important.

This brings us to the good news.

In Hungary we have gone through all the challenges I mentioned (propaganda, business pressures, surveillance), and we’re still alive.

My colleagues and I launched Direkt36 nearly 10 years ago, after we had to leave our previous workplace, one of Hungary’s most popular digital news sites, when it came under pressure from the government.

The first few years were especially hard, when we had to figure out the business side of our operations and establish ourselves as a new outlet. But now we have an organization that has been growing steadily, attracting young talent, and producing stories that reach hundreds of thousands (a big number in Hungary) and often put the government on the defensive.

Whatever resilience we have is due mainly to two reasons. Since advertisers and investors often have political agendas, we rely on a membership program as our main source of revenue. And we are an active member of the growing international investigative journalism community to which we can always turn for help, whether it is about pursuing a cross-border story or asking for technological or legal assistance.

We are not alone. When another popular news site, Index, was taken over by pro-government forces four years ago, its whole staff resigned and set up another outlet, Telex, which has quickly become one of the most influential news sources in the country (full disclosure: they are our publishing partners).

Another example is Partizán, an outlet that started as a YouTube channel just a few years ago. Now, it practically functions as the public service broadcaster of Hungary, streaming a mix of serious political coverage and entertainment to audiences whose size rivals that of traditional television channels. (The official public broadcaster has been turned into a mouthpiece of the government.)

If there has been one lesson during this journey, it is that nothing really matters other than the audience. I know, you’ve heard this a million times already. But we all should continue to think about it deeply. The model of college-educated journalists writing news for a college-educated audience clearly doesn’t work as a business model (at least not for everyone). Neither does it fulfill the role journalism should play in a democracy.

Our only source of power is our audience. The bigger and more diverse it is, the bigger our defense against any autocrat who wants to crush us.

András Pethő

András is a co-founder, editor and executive director of Direkt36. Previously, he was a senior editor for leading Hungarian news site Origo before it had been transformed into the government’s propaganda outlet. He also worked for the BBC World Service in London and was a reporter at the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including The Panama Papers. He twice won the Soma Prize, the prestigious annual award dedicated to investigative journalism in Hungary. He was a World Press Institute fellow in 2008, a Humphrey fellow at the University of Maryland in 2012/13, and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2019/20. András has taught journalism courses at Hungarian universities.