We publish regular reports about what we have been able to do thanks to our readers’ support. This is the latest such report.
Dear Readers, dear Supporters!
Since a significant portion of our funds are supplied by our readers’ support, Telex would not be able to function without you. Your support is instrumental in making it possible for us to do so many great things which are of key importance when it comes to keeping the country informed.
Thank you!
A basic condition of our existence is regular support, so we would like to ask you to consider supporting us on a regular basis if you are able to. And if you consider our work important, do tell your friends about us as well!
Here is a summary of the last few months’ most important events: these are things we paid extra attention to, or things that happened to us, as well as things that would not have been possible without our readers’ support – all of which we want to tell you about.
Traffic and results
The number of regular Telex readers has increased over the summer. Among the official audited data, one of the most important things for a news website is the number of individual readers visiting the site. On a list comparing the daily average number of visitors of Hungarian news websites, Telex came in sixth (website and apps combined) in August. All the websites ahead of us are ones that have been functioning for years, and we are just about to be two years old.
The strength of a brand is shown by the fact that its readers visit its front page and/or read it from an app. We call such consumers conscious consumers, as opposed to those who only occasionally visit a site for the once-off article. Telex is now the second most visited news site among conscious consumers, and we're even prouder to be the market leader among the 15- 29 age group.
In addition to readership, there is one other piece of data that is important in the market assessment of a newspaper, and that is the time spent on the site, i.e. how much time someone spends reading articles when they come to Telex, and whether they spend time clicking on other articles as well. We are number two in this category, but of course – as in everything else – our goal is to be number one.
Our internship program has come to an end. Last year we began working with ten interns who were chosen from among five hundred applicants. Now, a year later, eight of them have stayed on and are working with us. Finding and training young talents and nurturing the accurate and critical journalists of the future is something we, at Telex find extremely important.
We have new colleagues: Júlia Halász from 444 joined our video team. Dániel Zách, the former editor-in-chief of Alapjárat, and the former leading face of Totalcar, will write articles on transportation for us (which he has already been doing, but those articles used to be published in cooperation with Alapjárat. From now on Dani will be a full time member of the Telex team). We are generating a lot of data and we have hired Bálint Antal to organise, process and interpret it all. Another important change is that we have appointed our colleague Miklós Jenei as Marketing Manager.
Over the summer, we premiered our second major, self-produced and in many ways shocking documentary on the dark business behind illegal dog breeding in Hungary.
We sent a strong team to Tusványos, where half the Hungarian government is usually in attendance, and unlike in Budapest, it is somehow much easier to get them and the other government politicians to talk. We covered all that went on there and what was said in detail.
In the spring, we signed the two former heads of Elle Hungary, and since then we have been producing very good and important lifestyle articles under their guidance.
We have found that there are some topics that are very difficult to condense into one article, because they can be approached from so many angles. If covered in a series of articles, it is possible to look at these topics much more in depth.
These were some of the series we published recently (unfortunately, not all of them are available in English):
An honest look at bullying – It is estimated that one in ten children experience peer abuse on a weekly basis in Hungary – but this is only an approximate figure. In our series of articles on bullying, we explored the issue with experts and psychologists to find out what might be behind bullying and how many children are actually affected.
What are the challenges faced by a woman in Hungary today? What are her chances when it comes to work, how does having children affect her life, what challenges does a woman face in the medical system, and where are we in fighting violence against women and giving opportunities to the disadvantaged? We published a five-part series looking at each of these topics: this was the first one, the second part can be found here, the third here, and the fourth and fifth can be read here.
The last piece of our seven-part series on the effect of drought in Hungary came out recently – for now, only in Hungarian. The first article dealt with the problems of water management, the second with the increasing number of forest fires, while the third article looked at the problem caused by the drying up of wells. The fourth piece looked at the state of agriculture, the fifth dealt with Lake Balaton and the sixth with the fact that the whole situation was of our own making, beginning with the great river regulation of the 19th century.
We are very proud of Telexikon, which is something nobody else is doing in Hungary. Our most recent one (only available in Hungarian) uses the example of Wiener schnitzel to show how the movements in the global markets influence the cost of an average Sunday lunch, and all of our wallets. It’s not a fun topic but it is one which affects us all.
In early August we spent a day at the “Ördögkatlan Fesztivál”. This was our first time taking part in a cultural event like this, and we consider it one of the most important things we have done in recent months. We were curious to see how the audience would react to us, as well as what we can do within a festival scene. It all ended up being a magical time – not only do we think so, but those who were there, the organizers, and the hosts all agree as well.
As summer is festival season in Hungary, we made sure to report about all the most important ones. We brought photo coverage from