Regarding the media and dis/similarities, I recall something about a media war in Poland during the previous government. Was that ended soon, or you don't recall anything like that?

About our press, for fairness, I should tell more about it - it's not like media freedom died, or even scandal exposures, just investigative reporting.

There are two large political dailies: Népszabadság, the 'centre-left' daily, it was originally a Party paper  that emancipated itself in the last few years, later owned by Ringier, today by another Western media group I forgot. The opposition has Magyar Nemzet, which conserves the namer of a long-running respected conservative paper, but its staff is actually that of a right-to-far-right paper that bought MN. These two do report of a lot of scandals on the other side, like your big dailies, but almost all are either based on leaks (no journalist work involved), or - ever more often - based on nothing, more spin than substance. They are too beholden to the party line.

However, there are quality magazines. They do some investigating, but regrettably not much, they are more strong in punditry and analysis. The best is (ironically given my politico-economic views), the equivalent of the Economist, HVG. (In fact, it is the only paper I would call impartial.) Then there is 168 óra, which grew out of a very good radio show that did investigative reporting (and snuffing out which was one of the intentions of both Media Wars). Finally, there is Magyar Narancs (which I mentioned in the unknown European films thread): this is a paper originally allied to Fidesz, back in its progressive youth party years, but the paper maintained this worldview and broke with Fidesz. It has the stingiest tongue.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}