Direkt36 journalist Szabolcs Panyi on working under surveillance

The Loop is a Journalism Value project podcast, brought to you by Reference. We are interviewing the members of this network about key challenges for them, ranging from funding and business models, to community engagement and organizational structures, as we explore  what success and sustainability looks like for European independent media today.In the second episode, we talk with Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist working for Direkt36, a non-profit investigative journalism center that provides in-depth accountability reporting.Several years ago, Szabolcs Panyi was the subject of surveillance by the Hungarian government. His phone number was found in a leaked database containing 50,000 phone numbers of people targeted by Pegasus, a powerful spyware tool that can be installed remotely, and access virtually everything on the target’s phone.Pegasus was designed by an Israeli company called NSO Group with the purpose to to fight crime and terrorism. However, the leaked database shows that it was used for the surveillance of human rights activists, political dissidents, lawyers and journalists across the world.Listen to the episode to find out more about how Szabolcs Panyi, and the Direkt36 editorial team is coping with the challenges of working as a journalist in Hungary.Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

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