How to build a free press when the state wants you to fail

Three of Telex's founders will sit down for a moderated conversation about entrepreneurship in hostile conditions, the economics of independent media, and what Europe's own press can learn from a newsroom that refused to disappear.

In July 2020, the entire editorial team of Index.hu, Hungary's most-read independent news website, walked out after a government-allied businessman took control of the outlet. Within months, roughly 70 of those journalists had launched something new: Telex, a reader-funded newsroom that would go on to become the most visited independent media platform in Hungary, reaching 3 million readers and 40 million video views during the April 2026 elections that ended sixteen years of Viktor Orbán's rule.

The Telex story is not simply a story about journalism. It is a story about what it takes to build a resilient organisation under political pressure, how to fund independence without compromising it, and what collective action looks like when institutions fail. It covers the founding decision, the years of operating under threat, and the long-term business logic behind a newsroom that chose reader revenue over political convenience. It is also, now, a story with an unexpected epilogue: the country that once threatened to push Telex abroad has just voted its authoritarian government out of power.