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| The Freedom and the Politicisation of the Press |
| (2012-05-04) |
| Last updated: 2012-05-07 16:57 EET |
Romania ranks 47th in a freedom of the press ranking drawn up by Reporters without Borders made public on Thursday, on World Press Freedom Day.
The press has become more and more influenced by politics and many politicians have become media owners and managers. This is the main conclusion of the 2011 FreeEx report on the freedom of the press published by the Active Watch Press Monitoring Agency on World Press Freedom Day. The report reveals an apparently paradoxical fact, namely the increase in the number of TV news channels on a market where returns from advertising are on the wane.
The authors of the report say this fuels speculations that the purpose of these new media channels is serve as instruments of political influence in the 2012 election year, when local elections are scheduled in June and parliamentary elections in November. Razvan Martin is one of the experts who worked on the report on the freedom of the press in Romania. He tells us more:
Razvan Martin: “Many media channels, both the older institutions and those that have emerged recently on the market are owned by people who are close to the political scene, whether they are political advisors, people close to political parties or important political leaders themselves. There is nothing illegal in this, but it raises many questions as to the credibility of the act of the journalism in these organisations.”
Active Watch also says that the media market is still dominated by business people primarily interested in obtaining political and economic benefits and willing to invest fabulous sums of money to reach these aims. Moreover, the agency notes that the battle for TV ratings is even more intense and that 2011 saw still more grave violations of journalistic ethics, involving everything from the fabrication of news to the exaggerated coverage of scandals between the local VIPs and the exploitation of tragic events.
According to the report, Romanians have lost their confidence in the media, particularly television. Nevertheless, television continues to be the main source of information for a large section of the population. According to an IRES survey quoted by the 2011 FreeEx report, 83% of Romania’s adults watch TV every day, three quarters of Romanians believe that TV stations are willing to broadcast anything to increase their ratings, and 65% of TV viewers believe television tries to manipulate them.
The report also shows that journalists continued to be abused, insulted and threatened, particularly by politicians, officials, law-enforcing bodies and public figures. The report also says that Romanian journalists are vulnerable and lack defence mechanisms when it comes to employers’ interests. According to a world press freedom ranking drawn up by the Reporters without Borders organisation, Romania ranks 47th alongside Argentina, the USA and Taiwan.
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