Challenges of Post-December 1989 Romanian Journalism

Abstract

More vulnerable than its former communist “sisters”, pre-communist Romania had not enjoyed a “secondary society” (the germs of a “civil society” or of a “public sphere and clandestine or alternative media”). When the regime changed, it “woke up” in capitalism, with the few existing media institutions being eager to change, but also conditioned by the new existential paradigm of market economy. Employers and employees, collaborators and consumers were entering a new world, with different desiderata and different rules. They all had, in mind and/or declaratively, a dream: to be able to express themselves freely. The definition, perception and exercise of this freedom have been complicated in the Romanian public space, which is dominated, according to the Western model, by the media. Which law regulates journalistic activity? What is the moral probity of the leaders of post-communist Romanian media? With what diplomas can journalists support the exercise of their profession? How can the trust of the public be earned, since the same public had been lied to for half a century, under the censorship of the Communist Party?

Is it acceptable not to immediately replace the law regulating the media? What about the uncertain status of journalists? Under the “empire” of freedom of expression, do excess language and slander do good (M. Coman)? What about the complicity of the “Messiah journalist” with commercial and political Power, even though we were living in a post-communist “ill society” (Ibidem)?