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MEDIA AFFAIRS: In the early weeks of the Israel-Hamas war, Visegrád24 emerged as one of the most influential accounts in the non-Jewish world.
By BATYA LEVINTHAL FEBRUARY 6, 2025 19:56
DURING THE conflict’s early weeks, Visegrád24 emerged as one of the most influential accounts in the non-Jewish world. Here, Tompson (right) sits with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana last month.
(photo credit: Courtesy Stefan Tompson)
Online platform Visegrád24 has been labeled “conservative,” “anti-immigration,” “anti-Islam,” “pro-Israel,” and “pro-Ukraine.” Those are all terms that its founder, Stefan Tompson, acknowledged: “Well, that’s not wrong, but it’s quite reductionist.”
The Jerusalem Post sat down with the man behind Visegrád24 to uncover the interwoven story of Tompson’s personal journey and the evolution of his polarizing media enterprise.
“I would not define Visegrád24, nor the work we do, as aligning with journalism,” the 31-year-old Tompson said.
“We are highly opinionated and oftentimes sarcastic. We take sides in war and don’t pretend to be some objective media because what is the point of that?” The maverick’s bluntness has set the tone for the brand.
Tompson, a London-born, French-educated Roman Catholic with Polish and South African roots defies easy categorization.
A family man and PR strategist, he can now add “X (formerly Twitter) provocateur: to his resume, having turned a one-hour-a-day side project begun in January 2020 into a media juggernaut, disrupting narratives with a following of over one million.
By October 2023, Visegrád24 wasn’t just making waves – it had become a tsunami. The University of Washington ranked the account as the top performer out of seven “new elites” on X at the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War.
Within weeks, it had amassed 370 million views – three times the combined reach of The New York Times, CNN, and the BBC.
A megaphone for the marginalized
Named after the Visegrád Group – an alliance of Poland, Hungary, Czech, and Slovakia – Visegrád24 began with Tompson’s desire to shine a positive spotlight on a region that he felt was unfairly maligned.
“Mainstream media often portrayed these nations to Western audiences as fascist countries that don’t want to accept refugees,” he explained.
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In 2021, after successfully achieving its original aim, Visegrád24 broadened its scope, becoming the “voice of many people who have been rendered voiceless,” said Tompson.
Outside of covering the Russia-Ukraine War, today Visegrád24’s reach extends far beyond the borders of Europe, as it has documented religious and political persecution in Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Venezuela.
It also made its mark in the United States through its investigative journalism.
Visegrád24’s undercover operations exposed the structural antisemitic bias at Columbia University and contributed to high-profile resignations, such as that of former president of the Ivy League school Minouche Shafik.
Grasping Visegrád24’s full weight and unique position, Tompson reflected that he will “continue to preserve the values that underpin Western civilization.”
All eyes on… Israel
Visegrád24’s pro-Israel stance was not planned, it was personal.On October 7, 2023, as Hamas terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, Tompson called a close friend who lived on a kibbutz near Gaza.
The friend, on vacation in Thailand, was scrambling to return home – which he managed to do in the cramped toilet stall of an overbooked El Al flight. “I found it admirable and moving,” recalled Tompson.
In the conflict’s early weeks, Visegrád24 emerged as one of the most influential accounts in the non-Jewish world. “For all the Jewish influence in the media and Hollywood, there’s still an undeniable bias against [Jews],” Tompson pointed out. He said he found it his “duty to introduce some fairness to the equation that unashamedly gives legitimacy to Hamas.”
Tompson’s connection to the Jewish state, however, runs deeper than friendship and partisanship.
“Nietzsche put it more poetically, but Jews have a very long ancestral memory,” explained Tompson. “Ask any cab driver in Tel Aviv about his great-great-grandparents, and he’ll know all their names. The only place in Europe where you’d find that level of historical consciousness is Poland.”
Tompson credits the patriotic parallels between Jerusalem and Warsaw as another reason for his pro-Israel viewpoint.
“If Poland were attacked, I have no doubt the diaspora would come pouring back to fight – just like Israel. We even saw glimpses of this with Ukraine in 2022.” Tompson’s – and thus Visegrád24’s – allied position has also earned it accolades, including recognition from Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Combating Antisemitism.
A unique media model
Good original coverage doesn’t come cheap. Currently, Visegrád24 operates as a nonprofit under the 501(c)(3) model with an $850,000 annual budget.
“Our most expensive and time-consuming endeavors are our undercover investigations,” Tompson said. “Embedding operatives, crafting elaborate cover stories, ensuring they get the story and get out safely – it all adds up.”
Though he is the face of the online platform, the operation is not a one-man show.
“Visegrád24 was founded with my brother, and we now have a passionate team of a dozen people giving 120 percent of themselves.”
Grinning, Tompson added, “We recently hired our first Jewish investigator, so now we’re not entirely a non-Jewish foundation.”
Despite the challenges to monetize Visegrád24, he is adamant about keeping the venture independent and true to its grassroots and transparent nature.
As it stands, Visegrád24 has just enough support to sustain performance. “We cover what we want, when we want with our decentralized network of journalists and citizen reporters – and no oversight,” Tompson said.
Visegrád24’s candid approach is reflected in its expanding audience. While still predominantly North American, it has gained traction in France, Germany, Britain, India, and Israel.
That authenticity is not without its blind spots and missteps, however, such as the 2022 backlash over repeating a debunked claim that Leonardo DiCaprio donated €10 million to Ukraine.
“It was a lesson learned,” Tompson conceded, explaining that fact-checking is tighter today.
What’s next for Visegrád24?
TOMPSON’S VISION for Visegrád24 takes a page from Vice – the once-viral, youth-led, left-leaning media company – albeit with a different ambition.
“What Vice vlogs did with immersive journalism was bold, brave, and remarkable,” he said. “But we aren’t interested in balance or appeasing others, we have an obvious portrayal of what is good and evil – that’s what sets us apart.”
For Tompson, a self-proclaimed activist and doer, the next step is to level up Visegrád24’s content through high-quality documentaries, more undercover investigations, thought-provoking guests and op-eds, and strengthening its presence online. This is a mission already making strides.
“Apart from stepping up our Instagram and website, we recently took our YouTube channel from zero to 100,000 subscribers,” he said.
Still a fierce critic of Western media, Tompson insists two things can be true: Legacy media outlets continue to be necessary, yet their “capture by the Left means there is a void – one which is filled by new media like ours.”
They can co-exist, he admits, but audiences need to “get better at extrapolating information and recognizing bias.”
His deeply held convictions, unapologetic modus operandi, and impact on the modern media landscape have earned him praise and criticism. Tompson, and by extension Visegrád24, have been branded as “a disruptor,” “a defender of tradition,” and everything in between.
Sticking with the elusive and enigmatic depiction, he suggests that it was never really about the words: “What we do speaks louder than what we say.”
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