MEDIADEM findings in the Romanian press

Cristian Ghinea, who forms part of Mediadem’s Romanian research team, has published two articles in the Romanian press, reporting on the first findings of the project. The first one was published in the daily newspaper Romania libera. It is entitled ‘Statul, mogulii şi jurnaliştii’ [The state, the moguls and the journalists], and provides an overview of the conclusions of the Romanian background report. In this article, the author explains that the main problem regarding the media in Romania is the concentration of media ownership in the hands of several persons who use the media as a means to exercise political control. Clear-cut rules for media cross-ownership and improved enforcement of existing laws could offer a solution to this problem. However, Romanian journalists are deeply distrustful of state institutions and politicians that could provide such a solution.

The second article, ‘Regretindu-i pe proprietarii straini de presa. Sau nu’ [Regretting media foreign ownership or not], was published in the weekly magazine Dilema veche. On the basis of Mediadem’s background country reports, the author analyses the presence of foreign capital in the media industry of several Mediadem countries. The former communist countries did not have special laws against foreign capital in the media. Thus, as a general tendency, foreign media ownership is more present in Eastern Europe than it is in Western European democracies or in Turkey. In Romania, however, a reversing trend has occurred over the last years: foreign companies exit the media market, accusing the government of unfair practices by local media powerful operators.