As part of a new series of activities to mark its 60th anniversary, Radio Netherlands Worldwide has embarked on a series of global debates on the future of the media. Why is press freedom important to the public, as well as just those who work in the profession? What can emerging democracies learn from those countries who have emerged from a censored media landscape in the last 20 years?
Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Arjen de Wolff has been working on a co-production with the Romanian TV news channel Realitatea TV on what turned out to be a unique live two hour debate on the current state of Romanian media. The TV programme was broadcast on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, and opened by RNW Editor-in-Chief, Joop Daalmeijer.
“The media scene is a lot better than in the days of before the 1989 revolution, when the entire media was under the iron grip of a single party,” explains Arjen. “Since the fall of communism, Romanian media has changed drastically, with a large number of stations coming on the air to serve the population of 22 million people.
“Some international broadcasters, such as RFI and the BBC also have FM transmitters in the major Romanian cities. But it’ s only in the last 15 years that monitoring organisations like Freedom House have considered the Romanian press to be free.”
But despite the plurality of media, it is not always clear to everyone who owns what and how those interests affect what the Romanian public get to see and hear. The main conclusion was that Romanian media is developing along the right lines, but unlike in older European democracies, media pluriformity is not based on clearly defined political lines but rather on more obscure short term business and political interests.
The debate erupted when journalists complained about the recent Romanian Constitutional Court’s ruling on the re-criminalisation of slander and insult.
They believe that journalists are being taken to the Prosecutor’s Office as part of a public show trial inspired by the political elite and the media moguls.
“More transparency is needed, perhaps with a public code of ethics which stations and newspapers would publish.
“The media in general are not openly accountable for what they report. If someone feels they have been misrepresented in the media, there is no clear course of action for the right to reply.” The start of the debates has been timed to coincide with World Press Freedom Day. Points from the discussions in Bucharest will be used in Indonesia, Ghana, Benin and Argentina later this year, leading to a major international debate at the Peace Palace in The Hague on 28 November 2007.