RFE/RL Daily Report
                                     No. 140, 26 July 1994

HUNGARIAN JOURNALISTS PROTEST CANCELLATION OF TV NEWS PROGRAM. The
staff of the news program Hirado (Newsreel), a major evening news
program, protested at a press conference on 22 July against the
cancellation of the program and the firing of the program's chief
editor by new television chief Adam Horvath, MTI reports. The
program has as a rule been very critical of former Communists, and
many of its critics charged that it was openly supportive of the
conservative government. Horvath criticized the program for being
politically biased and for lack of professionalism. He sent about
30 Hirado staff reporters and 20 part-time employees a letter
informing them about their show's cancellation and telling them
that they were not fired and would be called back when they were
needed. A spokesman for the Hirado staff said that Horvath sought
to silence them despite pledges that there would be no purges
under the new management.  Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.


  [As of 1200 CET]

  Compiled by Vladimir Socor and Dan Ionescu
Copyright 1994, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.