Reporters Without Borders – Report on the freedom of the press
Romania is on the 53rd position out of 180 countries in the ranking compiled again this year by the famous organization for the defense of the freedom of the press, Reporters Without Borders.
Bogdan Matei, 04.05.2023, 13:50
The lack of transparency of media financing, especially from public funds, as well as the market difficulties undermine the reliability of information and confidence in the media – writes the report on Romania drafted by the organization ‘Reporters without Borders. The authors of the report admit that the Romanian media landscape is diverse and pluralistic and provides fertile ground for strong public interest investigations. In the 2023 press freedom index, Romania ranks 53rd out of 180 countries, up in the ranking against last year, when it was ranked 56th.
Large parts of the Romanian population tend to believe the false information often provided by the Russian propaganda, which leads to disinterest and mistrust in the quality journalism – the report also shows. The Romanian state remains at the bottom of the classification of European states in terms of respecting and guaranteeing the freedom and safety of the press, as well as the unrestricted access to information of public interest – said, last month, the president of the local non-governmental organization ActiveWatch, Liana Ganea. Her statement comes after the vice-president of the European Commission for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, had stated that the situation of the media in Romania was not very rosy and that there was a lot of room for improvement.
One of the main problems, the two aforementioned officials said, remains the fact that the big political parties non-transparently finance the press, a fact that leads to reasonable suspicions that the public agenda in the mass media is distorted. At the same time, the few journalists who are critical of the politicians became the target of smear campaigns initiated either by political actors or by media institutions with a long history of deviations from professional ethics. Moreover, journalists remain the targets of threats, including death threats. In 2022, the courts handed down two criminal convictions against people who committed crimes aimed at the safety of journalists. One of these convictions, which is not final, was related to the plotting to kill a journalist, Liana Ganea explained.
Radio Romanias correspondent in Paris also notes that, according to the Reporters Without Borders report, the conditions for exercising the profession of journalist are difficult in seven out of ten countries of the world. More than 50% of the world’s population lives in countries where the situation is very unfavorable and less than 1% enjoys the privilege of real freedom of the press. Last year, 55 journalists were killed during or because of the exercise of their profession, and another seven since the beginning of this year. At present, more than 500 journalists are currently arrested or detained for press offences. Propaganda, politics, economic manipulations, false content generated by artificial intelligence generate disinformation, which is presented in the report as the major threat to press freedom in the world. (LS)
