CNSNews.com and WorldNetDaily are not the only ConWeb outlets enamored by Viktor Orban’s right-wing authoritarian government in Hungary. Newsmax’s John Gizzi joins the parade with a March 15 article gushing over the country’s “robust — and revolutionary — pro-family agenda” with a softball interview with Katalin Novak, Orban’s minister of family and youth. How gushy? The picture accompanying Gizzi’s article is of him interviewing Novak in an opulent-looking room.
Gizzi uncritically repeated “uplifting statistics” about Hungary’s policies, which center around giving tax breaks to Hungarian natives to have children: “since 2010, the number of marriages is up 43 percent, divorces have decreased 20 percent, and the number of abortions has decreased 25 percent.” Hungary has a very high divorce rate, and it’s not actually clear that Orban’s policies are having any effect on that.
Gizzi also played down the anti-immigration stance Orban has pushed and which lies at the heart of the “pro-family” policy. He noted Swedish official Annika Strandhall’s criticism of the policy as “reek[ing] of the 1930s” but let Novak spin it by claiming “it’s not about what she’s saying but protecting our position” when, in fact, Orban has explicitly stated that Hungary is doing this instead of permitting immigration. (Even the white nationalist website VDARE has touted Orban’s policy).
Last November, Gizzi did a similar softball piece on Republican Rep. Steve King that downplayed his white nationalist sympathies.