WOW! Hungarians founded an international news agency in London

Its name will be V4 News Agency (V4NA), and it will start with a team of fifty journalists and fast-responding news teams in London, providing news both in English and in Hungarian, but they plan to add other languages at a later stage. The agency’s owners are New Wave Media Group Ltd. (the owner of e.g. origo.hu; 57 pc), Danube Business Consulting (owned by Árpád Habony; 40 pc) and, interestingly, Hungary’s extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador in London, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky (3 pc).

According to Válasz Online, it was a widely-known secret for a while that Árpád Habony, a pro-government media mogul, would like to move to the international stage after he gave all his media outlets to the Central European Foundation of Press and Media. Válasz Online believes that the aim of V4NA is to deliver the messages of the Hungarian government more efficiently in English-speaking countries.

Based on the agency’s publishing information, its editor-in-chief is Tamás Tóth while its publisher is V4NA Ltd., and it is registered in London. In fact, the V4NA started its activity on Monday when its Twitter channel started, and its first news appeared on different pro-government media outlets such as Origo. The agency’s slogan is “News from the V4, by the V4“. According to their description, “V4 News Agency (V4NA) is a newly launched, independent international news agency publishing the latest news and information from the V4 (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) and other EU countries.” Therefore, they will have correspondents in Bratislava, Warsaw, Prague, Paris, Berlin and even in Brussels.