You should have shut up!

I would have greatly appreciated it if no politician, media tycoon, or official of the Romanian state, who has had even a small contribution to the degradation of the Romanian media landscape, would have refrained at least today, May 3, on World Press Freedom Day.

At least today I would have liked to stop hearing you worrying to death about us, independent journalists, after you have turned a good part of the Romanian press into dust, and turned it into an infernal propaganda machine generously paid for with public money.

But in your boundless hypocrisy, you did not hold back even today. You have not had the decency to spare us from the festival of hypocrisy, the odes to the independent press, the empty sermons about our role in society, in which you not only do not believe, which not only are you disgusted or afraid of, but you abhor free journalists, and you have done everything in your power to kill any spark of authentic journalism.

The hollow chorus was opened by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă, with a litany of slogans and platitudes designed to cover the media scandal of which he is the protagonist.

Accused of plagiarism by journalist Emilia Șercan, who later claimed that she was the target of a smear campaign with information leaked by the police, thus suspecting state involvement, the government has not yet provided the expected clarification.

Instead, Prime Minister Ciucă „strongly condemned any attempt to intimidate or influence the way in which a Romanian journalist or newsroom exercises their constitutional rights of free expression”. What has his government actually done to find out who is behind the campaign to denigrate journalist Emilia Șercan?

In mid-March, the same Nicolae Ciucă asked the interior and defense ministries for „an urgent investigation” into the attempted intimidation of the wife of G4Media.ro’s editor-in-chief by an employee of the National Defence College. The police opened a file the very next day and the defense minister set up an „emergency committee” to clarify the situation. A month and a half have passed, and obviously, nothing has happened. At ease.

But behold the other big scoundrel daring to open his mouth instead of hiding under a rock for bribing the press with millions of euros during the 2020 election campaign.

The former prime minister, Ludovic Orban, has criticized Nicolae Ciucă for „talking about rope in the hangman’s house”. Only the hanged man, i.e. the press, stuck its head in the noose or leash, as you want, baited with the money put on the table by PM Orban.

While Orban was party president, the PNL bought with large sums of money the editorial content with the subsidies received by the PNL from the state budget, in great competition with the PSD led by Marcel Ciolacu, as revealed in the series of Radio Free Europe.

With the millions of euros from the budget subsidy, the big parties have managed to align a good part of the press, to corral it perfectly as not even Liviu Dragnea had managed and thus buy their peace of mind.

The press is bought to keep quiet or look the other way when uncomfortable revelations about the leaders in power emerge, and this happens frequently in Romania.

It is perhaps the greatest damage done to the Romanian press and democracy in recent years. The phenomenon has also come to the attention of Reporters Without Borders, which notes in its latest report: „The use of public funds to buy positive media coverage is a widespread political practice”.

In a country where the Public Prosecutor’s Office has been completely paralyzed, where we no longer see any relevant investigations carried out by prosecutors, the head of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Gabriela Scutea, has found herself sending „a message of unconditional support for the work of journalists and freedom of the press”.

„Not a few times, following such press material, the Public Ministry has taken action and succeeded in bringing the perpetrators of certain crimes to justice,” Scutea added in her message.

I would say that the reality is quite a bit the other way around: more often than not, the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not act, or, worse, it killed investigations. I would only mention here the case of the surveillance of journalists, which was refuted by the Prosecutor General Gabriela Scutea herself. Zero concrete actions in support of independent journalists.

Well, if you want to completely ruin your day, read Dan Voiculescu’s message. The founder of Antea TV Channels didn’t miss this moment to claim, between lines, that he is a martyr to freedom of expression and to remind his employees that he went to jail for them, and not because he stole 60 million euros that the Romanian state hasn’t recovered even today.

„Today is World Press Freedom Day. Within what limits is the press free? What is the role of the owners, and what is that of journalists? How important is the freedom of the press? Within what limits is the press free? Is the press the watchdog of democracy? Surely it would be worth holding serious debates to reach a consensus. On the other hand, is it worth it to anyone to make sacrifices for the freedom of the press? My answer is that both the freedom of the press, which means real democracy, and the true honest journalists, of character, with dignity, honor, and courage, deserve great sacrifices,” Voiculescu wrote on his blog.

How I wish he had shut up too, at least today.

To all the above sympathetic questions, Dan Voiculescu already knows the answer: millions of euros collected from the government and from party subsidies. That would be the short answer. The full answer can be found in the Reporters Without Borders report.

So, you’d have better shut up, the same as all the press you bought is deafeningly silent. The most wicked form of censorship, which a good part of the Romanian press, transformed into the scapegoat of power, is experiencing, is economic self-interest, self-censorship, voluntary abdication from serving the public interest, and employment in the pay of politicians.

It’s hard to fight something like this when all parties are satisfied: politicians are content to go about their business with public money, as the watchdog stops barking, busy chewing at the bones thrown at it from the table of power.

Disclaimer: G4Media has never applied for or received government funding directly or in the form of information campaigns. This is disguised state aid that distorts the media market and is unacceptable. G4Media also does not accept money from political parties outside election campaigns. Election advertising marked as such is normal during election time.

Translated from Romanian by Ovidiu H.