IPI is proud to count Libertatea, one of the highest quality media outlets and sources of independent news in Romania, as a member of our Central European Independent Media Network, which brings together leading independent news outlets in the region.

On 6 December 2023, the newspaper’s Swiss owner Ringier announced that editorial director Cătălin Tolontan, deputy editor-in-chief Iulia Roșu, and editor of the print edition, Camelia Stan, would all lose their jobs, and that 20% of journalists would also be laid off. The decision was branded as a dark day for press freedom in Romania.

The move was justified by Ringier Romania as restructuring required to place more focus on digital revenue in an era of declining print sales. It follows the abrupt closure in early November of the print edition of Libertatea’s sister newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor (GSP), which is also owned by Ringier.

However, the dismissals came amidst ongoing accusations by staff at both Libertatea and GSP about what they claim is interference in the editorial independence in both titles by figures within Ringier’s management. The accusations – denied by Ringier – stem from an alleged attempt by representatives from the company to preview articles about gambling firms that are advertising clients.

Although print sales were cited as the main reason for the restructuring at Libertatea, IPI notes that Cătălin Tolontan did not have duties that exclusively concerned the printed edition, while Iulia Roșu worked exclusively on the digital edition. Both had been among a group of editors from the two newspapers who had brought complaints to Ringier about unjustified meddling by Ringier management linked to the gambling industry. Both had also questioned the reported suggestion by a representative of Ringier Sports Management Group – who has well-established connections with the gambling industry, including being the founder of the national gambling association in neighbouring Bulgaria – for weaker separation between editorial and advertising teams. Of the six editors who in August 2023 requested a meeting with Ringier management to discuss the requests to preview articles, four have since lost their jobs and another, Libertatea’s editor-in-chief, has resigned.

After the initial dismissal of GSP’s then editor-in-chief in October, IPI wrote to Ringier to outline our concerns. In this correspondence, the company strongly and repeatedly rejected accusations made by staff of editorial interference. IPI has now sent a second letter to Ringier to seek additional clarifications on the disputed facts in this case and to underline our concerns.

Following the latest developments, IPI outlines our support for the continuation of high quality and independent journalism at Libertatea, and the important investigative journalism on the betting industry conducted in recent years by GSP. This kind of public interest and watchdog journalism is sorely needed in Romania, which faces a super-electoral year in 2024.

Any and all efforts by external actors or management to meddle in the newspaper’s editorial independence, particularly regarding its reporting on the gambling industry and those affiliated with it, must be met with strong opposition. While financial sustainability is important and always required for a media company to retain its editorial independence, any suggestion from management of weakening the firewall between the advertising teams and editorial newsroom to achieve it must always be challenged.

In early 2024, IPI and other media freedom groups intend to conduct a fact-finding mission about the climate for media freedom and independent journalism in Romania. Among other themes, the mission will also scrutinize the increasing corrosive impact the gambling industry is having on the integrity and credibility of both current affairs and sports journalism in Romania, and the main figures associated with the betting industry responsible for the alleged pressures on editorial freedoms.

IPI will continue to monitor the situation closely and has requested to meet with Ringier management to discuss the matter further. IPI stands with all journalists in Romania who are committed to strong, free, and independent journalism.

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. 

Major political parties and Romanian media outlets have in recent years signed significant contracts for political advertising, though transparency mechanisms are lacking. The content paid by parties is not marked as such, meaning the public can not distinguish bought publicity from legitimate journalistic content.

As Romania heads into a super electoral year in 2024 with four elections taking place, the issue of funding to the media – especially by the country’s largest political parties – is back in the spotlight.

Non-transparent funding of the media by some political parties distorts the public agenda and the tax payers are deceived by non-transparent politically sponsored content that is falsely promoted as journalism, Romanian press freedom NGO ActiveWatch writes in its recent report.

Cristian Andrei, a Romanian journalist specialized in contracts between press and political parties, told IPI that the mechanism is as follows: if a political party wants for example to promote a policy, they will take out a contract with a decoy agency, which then creates advertising contracts with news outlets. The content produced within the contract is not marked.

The contracts are paid with party subsidies that come from public money. Still, the content of these contracts are kept secret, as well as the media outlets that publish this content.

Citizens are basically being lied to with their own money, which, we must admit, is quite a feat, journalist Codruța Simina says in an interview for ActiveWatch.

According to journalists and civil society groups, these often lucrative advertising contracts have led to a drop in critical journalism as media soften or adapt their reporting to favour the party funding them. Romanian think tank Expert Forum states that the contracts reduce the independence of the media.

Romanian independent journalists have described the mechanism as a form of clientelistic bribery between politics and media which encourages self-censorship on certain topics or themes.

 

Increase in contracts after 2015

While the use of advertising money as a means of soft censorship of the press in Romania is by no means new, the money flowing into media from bigger political parties has surged in recent years, raising heightened concerns about its impact on editorial independence.

Political parties use public funds to buy the favorability of journalistic media”, says Cristian Andrei in an interview for IPI. “In big contracts of over one million euro annually, news outlets start to either avoid criticism or be less critical. A mechanism of auto-censorship appears. The political party is not demanding this directly, but the outlet changes its attitude as a result of the money it has received.

Politically paid content in Romanian press was made possible by a legislative change in 2015. Crucially, the contracts between political parties and media outlets are secret in Romania, which makes it hard to prove concerns about press freedom. According to public budgets, in 2022, the government coalition parties PSD and PNL spent altogether over 90 million Romanian lei (18.5 million euro) in contracts with media.

Contracts between political parties and news media have been growing significantly in recent years. According to Romanian news media Libertatea, in the first six months of each year, in 2021 the sum reached 24 million lei (4,8 million euro), in 2022 it was 47 million lei (9,5 million euro), and in 2023 it was 58 million lei (11,7 million euro). This has been happening simultaneously while the subsidies for political parties have been growing.

In some months the big Romanian political parties have bigger budgets allocated for press than big corporations, such as Coca Cola, Andrei compares.

The Prime Minister of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu, has justified the political advertising as allowing for parties to gauge the public reaction for different political initiatives. The advertising revenue has also represented a financial boost to many media outlets struggling in a small market.

There is no real debate, no pressure on politicians to change the system, ActiveWatch writes in its report.

However, the threat for democracy is strong especially due to the approaching bumper election year. In 2024, four different elections are due to be held in Romania: local elections, parliamentary elections, presidential elections and European parliament elections. As parties fight for public opinion, the already sizable influx of non-transparent money into the system will only increase, further complicating the ethical dilemmas of the media.

In the election year 2024, paid information can distort the vote, ActiveWatch writes.

 

International concerns

The millions of euros of politicized content pouring into Romanian media have also become a concern on the European level. In the Media Pluralism Monitor’s report in 2022, Romania was put into the highest risk group with Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovenia.

The Council of Europe and European Commission have both noted in recent reports that Romanian media does not provide enough information about the content paid by political parties and that these contracts have a detrimental effect on press freedom.

The Romanian public lacks trust in the system as well. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has recently reported that only one fifth of the country’s population thinks that the Romanian press is free from political influence. Only one third of the population trusts the news.

 

100,000 euros for an interview

Only a few of the numerous contracts between political parties and media companies in Romania have become public due to investigative journalism.

Online media Recorder published in autumn 2022 an investigation according to which political parties agreed contracts with some of the biggest television channels in Romania – Antena 3 and Digi24 – as well as online publication Hotnews and Newsweek-magazine.

Due to a lack of transparency, the exact number of media outlets benefiting from the advertising campaigns is not fully known. According to ActiveWatch, most of the time the money is channeled to websites of TV channels, as buying editorial content directly from the television channel outside the electoral period is prohibited by the broadcasting law.

The money goes through the websites of television channels, so that this money ends up feeding those that actually interest us: television channels, explained an anonymous member from PSD’s lead for Libertatea.

Recorder also had access to documents showing how PNL paid 1 000 euros per piece for 120 positive news articles about its activity. The paid articles were not marked as advertorials.

Companies have also been paid to distribute content that would most likely have been reported in any case, as they are in public interest. These include filming speeches in political meetings, being paid 5 000 euros per speech (65 000 euros altogether), broadcasting a press conference for 69 000 euros and conducting an interview with a presidential candidate costing 3,000 euros per minute, with a final cost of 100,000 euros. Two of the latter were marked ambiguously as “electoral debate” in TV due to the external funding.

“Many people watch such broadcasts and have no idea that the party paid for the airtime, and the moderator is not in the position of a journalist free of any constraint, but in the position of a host who has to put the client who paid for the broadcast in a favorable light”, Recorder explains in its story.

 

Distorting the media landscape

Journalist Dan Tăpălagă from the independent publication G4Media blames Romanian media for the situation. According to him the Romanian news media is distorted, non-functioning and its situation is critical.

“Romanian media accepted to play the political game. The watchdog of democracy is happy to receive small treats from the government and no longer barks at the government. It is wagging its tail happily, hoping that it will receive more easy money from the state. This easy money is distorting the media landscape”, he told IPI in an interview.

Tăpălagă says that only a part of Romanian media – some small online publications – covers topics that are unfavourable for the government. “Journalists here in Romania are not doing active propaganda on how good the political parties and government are. They play smarter: they avoid topics that are embarrassing for the government”, he added.

In September 2022, G4Media initiated a statement with two NGO’s in which they wanted to raise the alarm about the “unprecedented degradation of Romanian media landscape”. According to the statement, Romania risks facing the same situation where Hungary is and to lose European funds, if it won’t take measures to diminish political control over the free press.

We have a media that is completely quiet. Too quiet for this country, Tăpălagă says. He considers that the situation of Romanian media got worse with significant media subsidies, worth 40 million euros, that were given out during the corona pandemic in May 2020. These public funds are not unconditional money, Tăpălagă added.

 

Only hope for recovery comes from Brussels

The Romanian media market is suffering from Stockholm syndrome, says vice president Ionuț Codreanu from the Romanian press freedom NGO ActiveWatch “Mainstream media is too accustomed and familiar with political parties. The vast majority of media outlets don’t want to disturb political governance”, he says.

This also misleads the public, as they don’t get the actual news in their preferred media.

If people don’t hear something on the TV, they don’t believe it, journalist Ovidiu Vanghele describes the situation to ActiveWatch.

Codreanu underlines that solid independent media still exists in Romania, but it suffers from financial instability and brain drain.

According to ActiveWatch, there are also reasonable suspicions that political parties make contracts with media outlets to launch smear campaigns against their opponents.

ActiveWatch underlines media companies own responsibility for the current situation. “These commercial relations would not be possible without the active participation of media outlets that mislead their own audiences”, it writes in its report.

ActiveWatch considers that the mechanisms between press and political parties seem impossible to eradicate, and that the opacity of government parties is increasing in direct proportion to the sums these parties are investing in media. In its report, the NGO puts hope in forthcoming regulation on political advertising that the EU is working on, which should lead to more transparency in public communication. The European Parliament and European Council are currently negotiating the regulation.

The only hope for a slow recovery of these mechanisms also comes from Brussels, ActiveWatch wrote in its recent newsletter.

In the proposal for regulation, political advertisements need to be adequately labeled to distinguish them from editorial content. They will also be accompanied by a transparency notice, which will state for example the identity of the sponsor and the amounts spent.

The European Parliament has also been working on the draft Media Freedom Act (EMFA). Still, Codreanu considers the Romanian government to be superficial when transposing the European framework into national legislation.

I don’t believe our legislator is very serious when it comes to adapting new European principles, he says.

In its report, ActiveWatch says it has not identified any other country where political parties finance private media similarly to the current Romanian model.

How should the situation be solved? Journalist Cristian Andrei thinks that political parties should disclose the amounts they are paying, names of the publications and types of content and services they paid for on a monthly basis. In addition to this, all paid content should be marked.

However, Romanian politicians have opposed these ideas. The leader of the PSD group in the Chamber of Deputies, Alfred Simonis, told Europa Liberă that he “supports transparency in the spending of public funds, but that transparency should not lead to a situation where political competitors find out a party’s communication strategy and therefore the marking of articles paid for by the party should only be done 30 days after publication.”

The path forward remains unsure, but the situation is serious. Romanian civil society and journalists have hoped for reactive measures from an European level in 2023, before the electoral year starts. So far the international community has been quiet.

This article was commissioned by IPI as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries. 

You have been facing a lot of pressure in the past three months. How are you holding up?

I am very tired because I have experienced a horrible time. I wish I had a couple of  days to catch my breath. I feel it is getting harder and harder to cope with the consequences of the misconduct of the Romanian justice system and politicians.

 

We spoke last November, and back then you had mentioned to me you were working on an investigative piece and a few weeks later, I saw your article on Lucian Bode. Did this new smear campaign start right after the publication of your article?

Yes, it did. This new wave of pressure came after I wrote about the doctoral thesis of the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode. The degree of confrontation and hostility I have been facing this time signalled a new peak of aggression characterising the Romanian public space. A multitude of websites, including media outlets which receive public funding, as well as outlets run by former journalists who are now political members of the National Liberal Party, have launched a series of attacks to discredit me, spreading the rumour that I want to run for the Presidency of Romania. They claim that this is the reason why I have committed to writing about the doctoral theses of a number of politicians. They have been trying as well to tie my journalistic approach to a political party, although I have no political affiliation or sympathies. I have publicly expressed that I have not the slightest connection with any political party. Nevertheless, they implied that this is in fact a political attack on Minister Lucian Bode. To be sure, I have been investigating academic fraud for the past eight years. For the past eight years, I have been properly doing my job as a journalist, not because I had any political interest. After having been subjected to a set of intimidations, pressure, death threats and attempts to compromise, now they have devised another way of discrediting my work by saying that I intend to run for president. They profiled me, insinuating I mirror Maia Sandu, the President of the Republic of Moldova. Just like her, they claim, I am a small, fragile woman with a political agenda. Let me stress this point again: I have never had the intention of becoming a politician. I am a journalist and that is what I will always be for the rest of my life.

 

Why do Romanian politicians fear your investigation?

Politicians are scared of the things they’ve done and don’t want the public to know about.  This time, the public efforts to discredit and attack me have to do with  the Minister of Interior’s fear of being labelled a plagiarist. It is also related to the role as Secretary General that Lucian Bode plays within the National Liberal Party. He is the one who leads the National Liberal Party (NLP), despite the fact that the NLP President is Romania’s PM, Nicolae Ciucă, but Ciucă has little political experience and is not suitable in politics. Thus, my revelations about Lucian Bode’s academic fraud constituted a big blow, not only to the Government, showing that the Minister of Interior is a plagiarist, but also to the National Liberal Party [governing party and party of the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis]. Furthermore, my investigation represented a big blow to the Romanian Intelligence Service Academy, given that the rector of this institution coordinated Lucian Bode’s thesis, a plagiarised doctoral thesis. Finally, it constituted a blow to the Babes Bolyai University, which tried to evade academic verification. They tried to make sure that it didn’t come to this result. The attacks directed against me and the attempt to discredit the investigation peaked when eventually Babes Bolyai University admitted that the doctoral thesis was plagiarised.

 

So, we’re talking about political interference.

For this last smear campaign, there is documented evidence of political interference. Two articles were published on two websites – websites with dodgy domains registered outside of Romania, and who share no details about their owners nor their editorial teams. The content published by these websites promotes propaganda for the National Liberal Party. Furthermore, an advertising agency that has stipulated contracts with the National Liberal Party disseminated those articles  on Facebook, popping up as sponsored articles on the social media platform. An investigation conducted by Misreport, a Romanian website dedicated to checking fake news and misinformation, found evidence that an advertising agency had been paid for the distribution of  those articles on Facebook, an agency which has contracts in place with the National Liberal Party, including the last rounds of elections that took place in 2020, both at local and central level.

 

Do you think it is strictly a personal attack or represents a broader threatening message directed at journalism in Romania?

There’s evidence demonstrating that the Liberal National Party has paid for the smear campaigns and the online distribution of articles against me. The current attack is different from the previous ones, because it looks like the result of a very high concentration of forces. This sort of thing happens when there is someone giving specific orders. And such instructions could have originated within a political party. This is also a clear signal directed towards the very small community of independent journalists in Romania, the ones left. I would like to mention that at present in Romania, we experience a complicated situation when it comes to the press, and this is particularly difficult when we talk about Romanian mainstream press. About 80 percent of the press in Romania is funded by political parties, which translates into an extensive political control over the press. Under these conditions, characterised by a press industry which is almost entirely politically funded or controlled, independent voices and independent journalists who criticise politicians in the current governing coalition are extremely vulnerable and can easily come under attack, just as I have. To be sure, investigative departments are rare in Romania. There are a few small websites, teams of journalists who are not subjected to political control, and who must face the inherent difficulties of how to secure funding. Driven by their own passion for the press, for justice, and for truth, they continued to write and produce material on disturbing subjects for the political class.

 

Actually, you write as a freelancer for PressOne

Yes, I write as a freelancer for PressOne. I have a long-standing collaboration with them, and I realise that perhaps if it was not for them, the only way to publish my investigations would have entailed starting a blog. There are very low chances that I would have been published by an outlet in Romania.

 

Does morality have any value in the Romanian public space or not?

It has almost no value. This is the extremely sad conclusion I have come to after eight years of writing about academic misconduct. In Romania, politicians have made a major effort to normalise shame and to normalise plagiarism.

 

Have you been granted solidarity?

There were colleagues who supported me, there were colleagues who were with me during this period. International support really meant a lot to me. I received the support of international organisations, international media organisations which have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges posed to journalists in different countries where freedom of expression and physical integrity of journalists are under threat. The solidarity that I have received both in the country and especially from international media organisations and from some international institutions, European institutions, has mattered a lot. Theoretically, my profile is the most vulnerable, prone to being attacked and harassed. And for a freelance female journalist, it means a lot to know that you are not alone.

 

Do you perceive yourself as a role model for young female journalists?

Yesterday, I started the second academic semester at the University of Bucharest by delivering a class to a cohort of first year journalism students. We introduced ourselves, and one of the students told me that she enrolled because of me, because I was a role model for her. Her revelation made me very happy and excited, obviously. Up until today I was told by colleagues that what I do is extraordinary, but to see that I inspired a young 18-years-old woman to come to college because she saw what I do, well, I find it extraordinary. I realise that this has the power to impact female role models. In the past decades, when students joined our department, they were mostly inspired by showbiz and celebrities. Going to college because you have a role model, a female journalist doing investigative journalism, I think is a big change.

 

You have been nominated for the Jan Kuciak Award. How does it feel to be internationally recognized for the work you do?

First of all, it was a surprise and I feel very excited when I think about it, because you realise that you get international recognition after years of work, which for the most part has gone uncredited by other journalists in Romania. Because often it happened that the stories I covered did not appear in the mainstream press. When I was notified about the nomination, I got emotional, and I called my editor and shared the news with her. The joy, and the surprise, all rolled into one. We cried together on the phone. I would like to take the chance to mention how important Matthew Caruana Galizia’s support was for this nomination. He encouraged me to enter and participate in this award. We met in 2019, at an event organised within the European Parliament. Shortly after, when I received a number of death threats, in a context in which police investigation stalled, I sought his help and he responded. Since then, we have stayed in touch.

This statement was coordinated by OBC Transeuropa as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.