Vivid Media April 2005

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The truth about "The Truth"

by Alex Ulmanu
April 2005

Romanian media is a pretty sexy story for the Romanian media. After Evenimentul Zilei and Romania Libera, another important daily, the influential Adevarul has made headlines on the front pages of other newspapers and on television and radio broadcasts. Something not far from an editorial revolution has taken root in the print media. The clashes between newspaper owners and prominent journalists has been illustrated by some as an attack against editorial independence. But it could be nothing but an attempt at transforming major titles into profitable products based on the clear rules and standards observed by Western journalists.

So, what is going on at Adevarul? The name of the newspaper translates to “The Truth”, and every party involved seems to have its own version of it. The saying goes that the most simple answer is usually the correct one, but in Romania’s media environment, sometimes corrupt and prone to circulate conspiracy scenarios, nobody believes that things could really be that straightforward.

Here is the simple version: the main shareholder decided to change the board of directors because it comprised of journalists who combined responsibilities for the newsroom and the advertising. The board was replaced in a shareholders general assembly meeting held at the end of March. The four people at the top forced out of the board could keep their leading positions in the newsroom, but were no longer allowed to have a say in matters of administration, advertising included. The editor-in-chief Cristian Tudor Popescu and his three deputies decided this was too much of a humiliation and resigned, announcing that Adevarul as we knew it, was dead. The spirit of Adevarul, though, wasn’t, they said, announcing they would start a new daily in less than three months. In the first days after the meeting, around 90 journalists and technical staff out of the 250-strong workforce have resigned as well to follow their leaders.

Bear with me for some background and you will see that nothing is actually that simple in Romania. Adevarul’s main shareholder is Ana-Maria Tinu, daughter of the former director Dumitru Tinu, who died two years ago in a mysterious car accident after having acquired around 70 per cent of the newspaper’s shares. As dubious as Tinu’s death seemed, it nevertheless prompted a complex revelation that has drawn out over arguments concerning his estate. The press learnt that Tinu had led a double life. He had a wife and daughter, Ana-Maria. But he also had a son from a parallel relationship. Ana-Maria did not want to recognise her half-brother but the court did, so the son claims he is now entitled to a third of his dead father’s shares.

In addition to that convoluted sibling rivalry, there are men in the shadows who appear to control the newspaper. Rumour has it that Dumitru Tinu had bought the majority package with money from two dubious figures: Viorel Hrebenciuc, a prominent member of the PSD, and Fatih Taher, the businessman whose many assets include Bucharest’s J W Marriott hotel and Excelent, the chocolate producer. Since Tinu’s death, some sections of the media have argued that the real owners of Adevarul were Hrebenciuc and Taher. Former editor-in-chief Cristian Tudor Popescu constantly denied the rumours. As soon as he became aware of the plans to demote him, however, he wrote a stinging editorial in which he referred to Hrebenciuc as a “pink rat” and admitted the politician had an “undeniable influence” over Ana-Maria Tinu and hence the newspaper. Popescu also revealed that Hrebenciuc telephoned him up constantly to try to influence Adevarul’s political coverage. Hrebenciuc himself denied he had control of the newspaper, but said his party colleagues were constantly blaming him when anti-PSD stories surfaced in its pages, because they assumed he was indeed involved.

If Hrebenciuc and Taher have really been in control, it has been exceptionally well hidden. Officially, Ana-Maria Tinu has the majority package; since her father’s death it has been reported that she has increased her stake in the paper by buying another 15 per cent from other shareholders.

The question on everyone’s lips has been, why were Adevarul’s leading journalists replaced from the board? Is it because the ownership, whoever may form it, wanted a more profit-oriented management? Is it politics? If so, has President Basescu finally taken his revenge, by blackmailing Hrebenciuc into replacing Popescu on the board, considering Popescu has been particulary anti-Basescu since he assumed the presidency. Or has the PSD simply decided to get rid of a journalist who was difficult to control?
The truth may lie somewhere in the middle. And I dare say it is not so important if Popescu and his team were replaced for political reasons. What matters is that they were replaced from the board, and this took away from them the freedom to mix executive responsibilities over the company with editorial management.

There is a category of people in the Romanian media who wear several hats simultaneously: they run the newsroom, but also the company and in many instances they control the union, if there is one, as is the case at Romania Libera. They decide which stories, but also which advertisements go into the pages. They decide the editorial policy, and also the company’s management strategy.

Journalistic standards and ethics are too frequently forgotten because these star journalists are also businessmen. And sometimes they suck both as journalists and businessmen. Romania Libera, for example, has come close to bankruptcy several times in the past 15 years: the circulation dropped dramatically and the money gained in the early 1990s, when sales were huge, were invested by its journalists and businessmen in loss making investments such as pig farms.

Plus, these guys who have been running the Romanian media ever since the fall of communism, have sometimes put their personal interests above those of the company they were running. The best example is Adevarul itself, where, according to some sources, the four people at the top awarded themselves huge monthly salaries and ran the paper’s advertising through their own companies.

This clique of prominent journalists in charge of the major papers protect each other through the Romanian Press Club, which they control; they promote each other by inviting themselves on to talk shows hosted by one of their own; they pass as opinion leaders and as experts in everything, from sports to politics to the economy of Japan, because they write about all these subjects as if they were really in the know.

These people are partially responsible for shoddy local media standards that do not approach the ethical standards of Western newspapers. Their unfair, unprofessional practices - formed while journalists during communism, when compromise was a must for survival - have been perpetuated, unchecked. Their publications mix opinion with information, fail to balance stories by giving a voice to all parties, often promote hearsay and single-source stories as sound information, and it is not unusual to see advertising or promotional stories presented as news.

These media leaders have joined forces to portray attempts by the few Western media groups active in Romania to seperate editorial from advertising, and to impose clear ethical and professional standards, as attacks on editorial independence. If editorial independence was ever at stake at Evenimentul Zilei and Romania Libera is debatable. What is certain is that the international groups that own the two papers, Ringier and WAZ, sought to impose a new, modern workflow and codes of practice in line with Western quality press. Adevarul - if it is in fact owned by people with hidden agendas - could be a different story. But the situation there, with the editorial management combining responsibilities for the newsroom and the advertising, was wrong. There is no debate that Cristian Tudor Popescu is a popular journalist, and that he has been Adevarul’s main drawcard, which explains why many observers say his leaving may be a killer blow for the paper. However, the newspaper may survive if it manages to better its coverage and to keep its main sales base, the 70,000 subscriptions. On the other hand, let us hope the new paper Popescu has in the making will seperate editorial from advertising, and will manage to become a quality voice in the print media.

Alex Ulmanu is the founder of Start Media and a lecturer in journalism.