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Introduction

In this paper my aim is to compare two Hungarian daily newspaper issues--Népszabadság (People’s Liberty) and Esti Hírlap (Evening Herald)--from the mid-70’s with a view to how they presented foreign policy events that occurred on the day I was born, April 16, 1976. I am going to make a comparison between the style of the two papers and argue that Esti Hírlap, though considered to be a serious publication, in fact, was very much like what we might call a tabloid today.

Although, as Paul Underwood notes, “in the Hungarian context, the Western distinctions of elite, popular and yellow journals are meaningless”, as “all papers are serious publications, emphasising political, economic and cultural news” (1982, p. 462), still we can clearly differentiate between the two newspapers in what events they had chosen to report on and how much space they devoted to single news. Népszabadság was--and still is--the “largest and most important Hungarian paper”, which was at those times the “party’s principle organ, setting the tone for the rest of the press” (1982, p. 462). It boasted with a circulation of around 810,000 in 1976. The third most important daily was Esti Hírlap, with a circulation of about 251,000, the only evening paper of the country, sponsored by the capital’s Party Committee. Népszabadság ran 12 pages, while Esti Hírlap 8 pages. Both published six days a week, “printing on Sundays but skipping Mondays” (1982, p. 462). Both papers cost 80 fillérs at that time, which price was apparently kept artificially low.

The Method

The two papers were aimed at different audiences as it is clear both from taking a look at the headlines and at their content as well. My method was systematically comparing the headlines and the contents of the foreign affairs news stories in the two dailies presented on their front pages. I was interested in the extent to which these papers could be regarded as biased, so I have made an attempt to provide some background to the prejudices on behalf of the press, free or partially free. After having compared the contents of the front pages of the two papers I translated the articles in question then collated the styles of them taking into consideration such features as highlighting certain sentences and the wording of the events.

Results and Discussion

In spite of recent developments, as the government had chosen to soften the restrictions on the freedom of press, journalists chose events to publish, and published their articles with a certain bias, of course, in order to avoid hurting the interests of the socialist regime and its way of thinking. On the other hand, even in countries with the most possible freedom of press given, there exists a kind of bias in every piece of printed or broadcast media, thus the idea of press without prejudices and ideologies to follow is almost nonsense. As Fowler explains it in his work, “what events are reported is not a reflection of the intrinsic importance of those events, but reveals the operation of a complex and artificial set of criteria for selection” (1991, p. 2). Each happening in the world is subject to this kind of selection: “they are not intrinsically newsworthy, but only become ‘news’ when selected for inclusion in news reports. The vast majority of events are not mentioned, and so selection immediately gives us a partial view of the world” (1991, p. 11). Not only selection influences what gets in the news thus enhancing the possibility of certain biases but also “transformation, differential treatment in presentation according to numerous political, economic and social factors” (1991, p. 11).

Although the events described in the two newspapers in question were highly distorted to be favourable to fit the Party’s interests, it is parallel to what is going on in the media all over the world. As Fowler concludes, “the world of the Press is not the real world, but a world skewed and judged (1991, p. 222)”. Not only in the Communist world could--and in some places, still can--be seen news as a product, as the author expresses, but it is a general phenomenon wherever media exist. Moreover, this product is “produced by an industry, shaped by the bureaucratic and economic structure of that industry, by the relations between the media and other industries and, most importantly, by relations with government and with other political organisations” (1991, p. 222).

We might get a picture of the audience addressed of the two newspapers if we compare their contents. On the twelve pages of Népszabadság 25 foreign affairs news stories were published, while in Esti Hírlap 17. Furthermore, the stories in Népszabadság tended to be elaborated on, as opposed to Esti Hírlap, where only a few short sentences were devoted to them. As for home politics the number of articles was 17:3 in Népszabadság and Esti Hírlap, respectively. However, the latter paper covered more human-interest, miscellaneous soft news items, the number in their case was 13:25, further strengthening the tabloid character of the evening paper. Also, the number of articles concerning opinions, that is editorials and readers’ letters was higher in Esti Hírlap as the 1:10 figure shows. This fact is worth considering if we take into account that editorials and opinions are organic parts of a newspaper, as they “have an important symbolic function, seeming to partition off the ‘opinion’ component of the paper, implicitly supporting the claim that other sections, by contrast, are pure ‘fact’ or ‘report’” (1991, p. 222). In Esti Hírlap a whole page devoted to readers’ opinions and four more editorials were in the paper concerning various topics (a critique of a TV programme, one expressing discontent over technical books’ supply in the country, a critical essay on some US legal affair concerning a person’s acquittal in a dubious court case and an account on Easter memories of the author), whereas in Népszabadság there was only one such article, an open letter to the authorities about the problems of a Budapest council house--from which, however, we had better not draw any long-term conclusion, as it is possible that on another day of the week Népszabadság as well gave space to this kind of articles.

Comparing the content of the front pages of the two dailies anew tend to be underlying the differences between their style. There was only one news item published in both papers--it appeared among the headlines of the dailies, namely one concerning severe fighting going on in Lebanon, under the same title: “Súlyos harcok Libanonban”. The contents of the two articles differed in some aspects, though the amount of space given to the topic was roughly the same in the two papers. These differences might well stemmed from Esti Hírlap’s later deadline owing to its being an evening paper. For instance, Esti Hírlap reported 108 casualties, whereas Népszabadság 74. A characteristic of Esti Hírlap was that some sentences were printed in bold in order to underscore some essential points in the texts. In this article four sentences were highlighted this way: “In Beirut the adversaries were having severe gunfight deploying trench mortars, machine guns and heavy artillery”; “the right wing is deliberately striving to sharpen the military situation”; “in Damascus Syrian president Hafes Assad received the Palestinian delegation led by Yasser Arafat, head of the PLO’s executive committee”; “during the six-hour discussion the common Palestinian-Syrian point of view was outlined”, while in Népszabadság no such highlighting can be detected, only one clause is printed in italics, namely the one describing the number of the casualties and the wounded. The other paper’s using such techniques to attract attention might again hint at why it was regarded as a ‘quasi-tabloid’ even in those times.

On its front page Népszabadság had more articles on foreign policy matters, none of which is mentioned in the other daily. These were as follows: “Spanish Patriots Court-martialed”--in this article members of separatist terrorist organisation ETA are described, quite typically, as freedom fighters put on display trials; “The Declaration of the Cambodian National Assembly”--a short description of the Communist country’s proceeding on the policy of independence, peace and neutrality, at the same time strengthening and developing solidarity and friendship toward all revolutionary movements and peace-loving countries and people of the world, as reported by the Soviet news agency TASS; “Laos Has Taken the Initial Steps on the Way of Social Progress”--another TASS report about a Communist leader addressing his people invite them to strengthen further the national unity and mobilise the revolutionary forces in order to restore and develop national economy; “Schmidt on the Necessity of Détente Policy”--this one was by the Bonn correspondent of the daily, about the West-German chancellor’s making his point of view about the détente unmistakably clear. Interestingly enough, all articles on the first page were complete ones as opposed to today’s fashion, according to which many articles only hint at the essence of the topic and the whole discussed in detail inside the paper.

The leading headline of Esti Hírlap, apart from the one about the Lebanon crisis, was reporting that the 15th Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party had been over and had elected Gustav Hushak as secretary general. (The same topic was discussed at length on the third page of Népszabadság.) Another lengthy article, titled “Deng is set upon anew”, reported by Endre Aczél, discusses that Deng Xiaoping had been considered to be a rebel by many in China. It is notable that the article had a slightly ironic, definitely critic tone when describing the petty delays going on within the Chinese Communist Party. There was an article about a cabinet crisis in Italy as well, indicating that the postponing of the crisis in the Italian government could only be an ‘Easter present’ for the Italians, as the crisis could not be avoided. To the remaining three foreign policy news only a few short sentences were devoted in Esti Hírlap. One of them described East Germany’s achievements in shipbuilding and export, another was about French antifascists’ organising a commemorative celebration on May 8, Victory Day. The last one was a propaganda news item about the US House of Representatives conceding that a multitude of firearms had disappeared from the Pentagon’s alleged store-rooms, which reportedly had got in the hands of drug dealers and other criminals.

Conclusion

Features in Esti Hírlap, like its including several scoops underline the fact that its editors aspired to have their paper full of sensations--in Népszabadság the aim was to report more serious events as objectively as it was allowed. In the former paper more space was devoted to soft news, which in the latter played only secondary role. We might conclude after having compared the two dailies that even though all publications were deemed to be serious ones in the Communist era in Hungary, at least one exception existed, and this was Esti Hírlap, with its more colourful, sensation-centred style and shorter, more concise articles and numerous photographs.