Investigative journalist in Central Europe covering Viktor Orbán's Hungary, Russian and Chinese influence, corruption, national security and foreign policy.
He graduated from Eötvös Loránd University where he studied Hungarian language and literature. Between 2013 and 2018, he was an editor and political reporter at Index.hu. At Arizona State University, he studied investigative journalism on a Hubert H. Humphrey (Fulbright) fellowship in 2017-2018.
In the fall of 2018, he joined Direkt36.hu, where he mainly works on stories related to national security and foreign policy. Meanwhile, he helped launch VSquare.org, a Warsaw-based cross-border investigative journalism initiative for the Visegrád region (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), where he is currently leading the Central Eastern European investigations.
He received the Transparency-Soma Award for best annual Hungarian investigative journalism four times, and he was also shortlisted for the European Press Prize in 2018 and 2021, and the True Story Award in 2023.
Contact: szabolcs.panyi@vsquare.org