Independent EU media is under attack

Attack civil society. Attack the media. Attack the judiciary.

Undermine the credibility of opposition, silence independent opposition, use existing rules to tilt the playing field in your favour.

The populist-authoritarian playbook perfected by Viktor Orbán has arrived in Brussels.

Dear readers,

First, it was the NGOs. Over the past six months we have watched a well-coordinated bloc inside the European Parliament set up new bodies to “investigate” how nonprofits are funded. A special working group, pushed through by the EPP with far-right backing, now has a mandate to trawl through EU funding for civil-society organisation.

Why start there? Because casting doubt on NGOs softens the ground. Once watchdogs and advocacy groups are portrayed as foreign-funded stooges, it becomes easier to paint independent newsrooms with the same brush. We saw this in Hungary, where a “foreign agents” law muzzled critics and 80 percent of the media now toes the government line.

That pattern is repeating in Brussels:

Smear, then starve. Right-wing MEPs have already threatened a blanket funding freeze for environmental and human-rights NGOs, jeopardising up to 70 percent of their operating grants. With the new EU budget up for discussion, this can happen to media as well.

Create a “propaganda” narrative. A recent report dubs EU support for cross-border news outlets an “€80 million media machine,” insinuating systemic bias without presenting evidence—precisely the tactic Orbán used to discredit Hungary’s last independent broadcasters. This narrative was picked up and spread by friendly news outlets, such as The European Conservative, Brussels Signal, and, weirdly, by major EU funding recipient Euractiv.

Demand political action. As with the campaign against NGOs, expect independent media and factchecking funding to appear in Parliament debates. Spurred by the Patriots, the EPP swiftly picked up the anti-NGO narrative last time. Don’t be surprised if the same happens with media.

Watch for terms like ‘independence’ being turned against media. Watch for reports making sweeping claims without supporting evidence. Watch for oversimplification, double standards and simple solutions. Watch for statements like ‘experts say’, without experts being named. Watch for fancy-sounding but vague descriptors like ‘reflexive alignment’ and ‘narrative conformity’. Watch for arguments about market distortion due to subsidies or failure because of them. Watch for preemptive claims of ‘dissent is being silenced’.

And pay particular attention to the narrative around news agencies — as the source for many other media, undermining their trust undermines trust in news all over.

The goal is not honest oversight or starting a debate. The goal is to create a climate of suspicion, with well-meaning political actors trying to quell this by

accommodating and validating the narrative. The goal is to give anti-democratic actors more room to lie.

What can you do?

1. Secure your access to quality news - sign up for direct access (RSS or email) to quality news, unmediated by algorithms.

2. Speak up publicly whenever independent outlets are smeared as “propaganda.” Inaction breeds the appearance of consensus.

3. Treat a subscription or membership to quality news as civic duty, not a luxury. There’s money behind disinformation, which means it can be given away for free.

4. Don’t only read news! Just knowing the individual updates allows bad actors to ‘connect the dots’ in convenient ways — find sources, experts, media and channels you trust to give you context.

Your attention matters.

Attacks on journalism thus attacks on democracy. Your democracy.

Yours,

Alejandro Tauber

Publisher EUobserver

Part of the reason why we can so vocal about this issue, is that more than half of our revenue comes from readers — people like you — and none of it is granted by governments or the EU.

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If you’re not yet a supporter of EUobserver (or another independent source of news), do consider support.

But don’t take this as a sales email — we have followed the NGO saga closely, and will fearlessly report on the attack on media, because reliable, factual information is the foundation of a healthy society.