As part of the HDMO project, Mérték Media Monitor analysed the political and public affairs content of seven mainstream news sources (six pro-government and one independent) between March 16 and April 10, 2026, during the four weeks of the 2026 election campaign.

We focused on the pro-government news sources, examining how government propaganda messages appeared across different types of media outlets (public service news sources, serious and tabloid news portals, and commercial television stations). We examined the pro-government news portal Magyar Nemzet, which disseminates hard-line propaganda, and TV2’s evening news program; among public service news sources, the 6:00 p.m. news broadcast on M1/Duna and the Híradó.hu news portal; we also analysed the online newspapers Index and Blikk, which are part of the pro-government Indamedia portfolio; and we also included RTL’s 6:00 p.m. news broadcast in the analysis as an independent point of reference.

Of the 4,597 pieces of content collected, we coded 1,828 in detail; the sampling criterion was the presence of domestic political figures in the individual news items.

The Hungarian-language final report is divided into three main sections. In the first section, we present the research methodology and the basic characteristics of the analysed news items: the news coverage of the media outlets examined, the thematic structure of the news items, their use of sources, and their editorial characteristics. The second section examines the representation of politicians during the campaign period: through an analysis of forms of representation and attitudes, we demonstrate the extent to which individual news sources were balanced in their portrayal of political figures. In the third section, we explore the narratives of the campaign period in detail.

Some key findings are also available in English here.