Investigating the Journalists
By Anca Paduraru
anca_paduraru@yahoo.com

Bucharest, Romania - A year ago allegations that Bucharest-based dailies blackmailed advertising companies and their multinational clients to get contracts, received a swift reaction from the business and advertising community. Despite the outcry, the scandal spurred few significant changesin the media industry. This year the financial pressure has moved to the provinces where economic survival is even more tenuous. A study by three nongovernmental organizations detailing how public money is spent on media advertising in 10 of Romania's 42 counties "shows corruption in the media and a curtailment of the freedom of speech," says Liana Ganea, of the Media Monitoring Agency - Academia Catavencu, one of the three NGOs. Another study, conducted on the way central public authorities and publicly funded companies spend their advertising budgets, reveals that the state has become a major advertiser. "One year ahead of the electoral campaign this is not good news," says Christian Ghinea, an expert with SAR."Balanced and fair reporting is likely to get damaged." Public scrutiny over the use of advertising budgets was curtailed, he found, because some public authorities chose to hire advertising agencies; as, for example, the Privatizations Agency (for US$ 6 million), and the former Ministry of Tourism (for US$ 2.15 million) respectively, said Ghinea. A birds eye view shows a buoyant Romanian media market; but the truth is tiny media outlets die to be replaced by others equally feeble and likely to perish in a short while. Three such tiny dailies blasted were blasted for that kind of conduct last year. Cornel Nistorescu, editor-in-chief of 'Evenimentul zilei,' the second largest tabloid in Romania at 105,000 copies per issue alleged that 'Ziua,' 'Independent,' and 'Curierul national' dailies blackmailed companies and advertising firms for money in exchange for ending their bad coverage. The first daily has 35,000 sold copies per issue, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Romania; the other two are not even audited. Quite famously, also last year, PriceWaterhouseCoopers printed a warning in all major business papers about their experience with one local English newspaper, describing the negative coverage they received after refusing to sponsor a particular event. "The case is already notorious and we want this practice in the media to stop. We are for fair reporting", said PWC to Business Week Review at the time. This year, Nistorescu says "a vicious battle is underway inside Romania. I have video tapes documenting journalists blackmailing local businessmen in Targu Mures; but it has to be said there is not one county where at least one local daily would not do that. Unfortunately, the Ziua type of conduct has been cloned," says Nistorescu. He acknowledges however that the three Bucharest based dailies he had singled out have stopped their actions following the reactions last summer of the International Advertising Association, Romania chapter, and of the business community, most notably of the American Chamber of Commerce. Others argue that the conduct of some journalists is cloning, or at least mirroring in part the behavior of those who provide them with advertising revenue, who more likely than not will ask as part of the contract that critical and negative reports on their companies be suppressed. Still, while many say "smoke is in the air," no one really gets around to tracking the location of the fire. "One can only think that where there is smoke there is usually fire, but none of our members filed an official complaint," says Veronica Savanciuc, president of both Lowe & Partners advertising agency and the International Advertisers Association in Romania, which unites some 70 advertising and media companies. Indeed, Bogdan Enoiu, manager of McCann Erickson and president of IAA when a public statement was released last year in protest of blackmailing practices from journalists, confirms that the declaration was "a preemptive action, like the Bush doctrine, because back then we did not have any official complaint either." Ralu Filip, president of the National Council of Audiovisual, a body under parliamentary control regulating the electronic media market, agrees one still has to rely on good common sense than official complaints to get the picture. "One can only asses the phenomenon according to the outcome: I see television shows or print articles that fiercely criticize certain products or companies, and later discover that advertising and favorable coverage miraculously pops up in the same outlets," says Filip. However, advertising and media markets are coming of age, says Enoiu. She points out that "no serious advertiser would give in to threats when accurate figures of circulations are available from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Romania." Radu Florescu, manager of Saatchi & Saatchi, confirms this position: "In the past it happened to us, but I refused and continue to refuse any type, shape or form of blackmail that will try to force us place advertising in publications against the business interests of my clients. I couldn't care less what they (the publications) say." While stating that the unethical conduct of journalists it is still a problem, Florescu does not want to name names saying "I do not want to stigmatize any of them. That has to be addressed in a very tactful way and I would rather stress the change in the practice, and demonstrate that an association of companies with a focus can actually change the unethical manner of conducting business of some of the media outlets." But the main solution to stopping the trend should come from the journalistic community regulating itself. However, this has not developed yet. A September report on the freedom of the media in Romania, released by the Media Monitoring Agency - Academia Catavencu, showed "a Berlusconi-type" of control spreading over the local media, with local businessmen and politicians (often the same persons) taking over local newspapers, radio and TV stations. It is a formula bound to produce political distortion of information. The same report notes a positive trend towards media self-regulation, including the efforts to draft a journalists' statute under the aegis of the Convention of the Media Organizations which includes over 30 media unions and professional associations, and those of the Federation of the Journalists and Printers Unions to draft a collective labor contract to be used as a platform for negotiation with media executives and editors represented in the Romanian Press Club. Nistorescu, a member of the Romanian Press Club, says, however, that "nothing is going on in the professional community." Nistorescu added that he"did not feel support for his stance on the issue of journalists adopting the same behavior as those who place pressure on them."

 

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