Decrypting Romania’s press

In 1989, when communism fell, there was no journalism as such in Romania. No one was able to write reliable news or analysis and, at least at that time, the public felt no need for such fare.

Romanian journalism was - and partly remained - heavily influenced by the tradition of pamphleteering, lip-smacking demolition of political enemies with clever invectives, overblown righteous indignation and violent rhetoric.

Even today, the automatic reaction of a Romanian reading a critical political comment is to try to decrypt it and discover the ‘real’ affiliation of the author.

Declarations of neutrality are ridiculed and those who pretend to be objective are regarded as unreliable ("How can they be trusted, when one doesn’t know who they are with?"). Unsurprisingly, Romanian papers remain better at commenting on and interpreting the moving sands of internal politics than at tackling major international issues.

Even big newspapers have few foreign correspondents and the ‘external’ pages are often filled with dispatches taken from whatever news agency the paper in question happens to subscribe to. Most often, the foreign page covers EU subjects, while Africa, Asia and South America might as well be on another planet. The recent ‘tabloidisation’ of the Romanian press did not help, editors now catering for the lowest common denominator.

This trend was accentuated after 2000 when western press holdings and media groups started to take over the biggest Romanian papers. The German WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, based in Essen) bought Romaˆnia Libera? (Free Romania, circulation: 200,000), while the Swiss Ringier group took over the biggest paper in terms of circulation: Evenimentul Zilei (The Event of the Day, 230,000 copies), together with other, smaller dailies.

Most of these papers immediately switched to a tabloid format and style, before internal conflicts, a spate of resignations and even some pressure from public opinion, forced the owners to backtrack and to keep financing decent journalism.

For a population of roughly 23 million, there are dozens of regional newspapers, but the largest ten are all based in Bucharest, with offices situated in a perimeter of slightly more than one square kilometre. The result is an incestuous permutation of names, as the best journalists keep moving around, changing allegiances and patrons and attacking each other.

Romanian journalism is currently going through a generational change. The newspapers are run by people in their 40s and early 50s, who, before the fall of communism, represented the young generation of intellectuals. Some of these opinion-makers have recently been unmasked as ex-informers for the old secret services. Those who have confessed on time and made public mea culpas have been able to build personal capital on that.

What remains a constant of Romania’s media landscape is cosiness with the powers that be. And the commercial side has now become predominant and the papers have learned to live with advertisers who often have their own ideas about editorial content.

Still, contrary to pessimistic predictions, Romania did not become entirely tabloid territory. The Romanian press is in essence healthy. There are market niches, even for an odd socio-cultural-philosophical weekly (called 22, a sober succession of grey erudition), as well as for the rabidly nationalist Romaˆnia Mare (Great Romania, the weekly of the ultra-nationalistic party with the same name).

Its colourful invective against anyone not seeing exactly eye-to-eye with party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor is reassuring to anyone worried about the staying power of Romanian traditions now that it is in the EU.

In 1989, when communism fell, there was no journalism as such in Romania. No one was able to write reliable news or analysis and, at least at that time, the public felt no need for such fare.