Hír TV, (News TV) known for its sympathy for right-wing politics in general and the largest opposition party, Fidesz in particular, has literally been in the forefront of the riots since the beginning. Hír TV was the only station with live coverage of the MTV siege -  their footage was broadcast by not only Hungarian rivals RTL and TV2, but also by BBC and CNN. Not by the MTV, though. The state TV ran a canned culture program while the HQ were under siege Monday night.

Rivalry between commercial channels culminated in a close encounter Thursday night, when the Hír TV crew, cruising Budapest streets looking for events, noticed that they were being followed by a white car. They tried to shake it off and even performed an illegal U-turn, but the white car wouldn’t let go. When Hír TV anchor Attila Császár confronted the suspicious car’s driver and the passenger, they produced TV2 id cards and pulled out a huge camera from the back seat. Asked why they were following the rival crew, they said Hír TV seemed to be better informed than they were. Hír TV ran the entire incident on Friday.

Oh, and did we mention the people at Parliament cheered and applauded Al Jazeera for showing up among the international TV crews to report on the protests?