Hungarian American Coalition 2400 N Street NW, Suite 603, Washington, D.C. 20037, U.S.A. Phone: (202) 296-9505, Fax (202) 775-5175, E-mail: hac@hacusa.org
Mr. Tamás Bodoki Editor Atlatszo.hu Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft. Budapest Hungary July 6, 2014 Dear Mr. Bodoki, We are writing in reference to the article entitled „Kétszázmillió forintot juttatot a magyar kormány amerikai civil szervezeteknek a választások el tt”, posted to your website on June 27, 2014. The article contains factual errors and mischaracterizations and draws unsubstantiated and untrue conclusions. It is clear that the authors failed to uphold even minimal journalistic standards of fact-checking, source verification and editing. To set the record straight we would like to inform the readers of Atlatszo.hu about the following facts: The Hungary Initiatives Foundation was never registered at the address of the Hungarian American Coalition, as the article states. In fact, the Coalition provided temporary office space to the Foundation for a few weeks at the beginning of their US operations. There is no basis to the assertion that The Hungary Initiative Foundation made grants to Fidesz friendly organizations. In fact, Hungarian domestic politics plays little or no role in the functioning of Hungarian American civic organizations. The article states that the grant given by The Hungary Initiatives Foundation to support the Coalition’s „Congressional Internship Program” is used by the Coalition to pay salaries of US Congress staff. This assertion is patently ludicrous on its face, as any editor of foreign affairs issues would immediately know. The article quotes the Coalition’s call for applications for the internship program. Yet the article does not add the information, from the same document, that most of the program’s beneficiaries of the program are Hungarian students from the Carpathian Basin and that the program covers their living expenses. A report for the 2011 program, available at the Coalition’s website, also provides information on program participants, and information on the sources and uses of funds. None of this information was acknowledged or used by the article. If the mission of Atlatszo.hu is to provide transparent information to their readers and supporters, the above article does exactly the opposite: it makes transparent matters murky, thus betraying your own mission.