Media September 2005

MEDIA
Befriending journalists: how far can you go?

by Alex Ulmanu
September 2005

If you watched Romanian television this summer, President Basescu could not have escaped your eye. Everywhere he went the president was closely followed by television cameras and eager reporters. Whether consoling victims of the devastating floods, at the construction site of a crucial bridge, in the audience at a pop concert, or partying in popular restaurants, Basescu has been omnipresent of late.

Basescu’s example was adopted by other political leaders such as Prime Minister Tariceanu, who appeared on television while dancing in public with his beautiful young wife, and while relaxing at a seaside beach, and his predecessor Adrian Nastase, who graciously bought a bunch of artefacts from some resort market, explaining to television crews how he had bargained to the last leu. Undoubtedly those bargains shall find their proper place near the valuable art pieces Nastase collects.

If it wasn’t for the fact that it was just last winter that elections were held, the casual observer could have sworn we were just two weeks from going to the polls.

Now, look at things from a politician’s point of view: there is nothing wrong in searching for the public spotlight, especially since times are forever campaigning and electioneering and trying to win over the voter – even when there isn’t an election in sight. Moreover, everybody is talking of early elections, so one can never be too careful or smart when it comes to earning brownie points. If journalists fall for it (and they do), why not let them know you are going to have dinner in a restaurant where mititei and ceafa de porc cu cartofi prajiti are the most popular items on the menu? Messrs Blair and Bush may strive for privacy when they holiday, but Romania is not Britain or the US, and the Romanian president is, as he always likes to point out, a different kind of president from anyone we have seen: a man of the people, who is not going to change his habits simply because he is head of state.

But, if Basescu’s escapades are understandable in this context, as are some of his other image stunts – there are, as well, some old habits that he looks prepared to change. One such habit is his penchant for cultivating close relationships with certain members of the press which has surely brought Basescu more wins than losses in the past 15 years. So close, that some of his buddies in the media have direct access to the president, party with him, and are comfortable asking for political favours of him.

The president gave a clear message he wanted to jettison such relationships when, in an unprecedented attack launched in an interview on public radio last month, he talked of a well-known media person who threatened Basescu with attacks in publications he controlled.

The journalist, it was later revealed, was Sorin Rosca Stanescu, a close friend of Basescu’s of 15 years standing. Like other prominent journalists in Romanian media circles, Rosca Stanescu is a businessman with high connections in politics, and is thus a man of influence. He controls three daily newspapers: Gardianul, the newly launched financial paper, Averea, and the most well-established of the three, Ziua, which was often accused of harassing businesses to buy advertising in exchange for publishing positive – or, rather, for not publishing negative – stories. All three are now part of a media conglomerate including Realitatea TV and Total Radio, partly controlled by the powerful union of the Petrom employees and, according to some media reports, by controversial businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, who prefers to avoid any official involvement.

Rosca Stanescu is also good friends with Rompetrol’s CEO Dinu Patriciu, who is good friends with Prime Minister Tariceanu, who gave up setting the stage for early elections, Basescu said, after a conversation with Rosca Stanescu and Patriciu in a restaurant. Some in the media speculated that the telephone exchange between Rosca Stanescu and the president in which the former allegedly threatened the latter was launched by Basescu’s supposed support given to an investigation which recently led to Patriciu’s being questioned by prosecutors in matters of corruption.

But leaving aside any speculation and plotting – otherwise so dear to Romanians, and to Romanian journalists in particular – what is certain is that Basescu gave the phone call example to illustrate, in the interview on public radio, how “mafia-like” the media can be when they wish to influence political decision.

In the end, though, Basescu hasn’t come out very well from the whole story. In a meeting at the Romanian Press Club he named Rosca Stanescu as the journalist who threatened him. But he also said he did not have any proof to support his allegation, and he preferred to bury the hatchet – in spite of analysts bringing about the fact that a journalist and opinion leader harassing the president in an alleged attempt to influence public decision and serve private scopes could be regarded as a threat to national interests. Shortly after Basescu’s public radio interview, Rosca Stanescu’s newspapers intensified their attacks on the president. Gardianul went as far as to quote Basescu explaining in a rather unorthodox fashion his international policy, which he had done during a private conversation in a restaurant. “Rather than kissing the a… of several smaller fireflies, I prefer to kiss the a… of a bigger firefly,” Basescu allegedly said, referring to his favouring a privileged relation with the US rather than France or Germany.

“As Traian Basescu ‘unveiled’ the restaurant discussion between Prime Minister Tariceanu, two businessmen and a journalist, perhaps it won’t disturb him if we present a series of things he said, also in a private circle,” Gardianul wrote. The paper added that breaking confidentiality is justified because it has interest to the public, as the quotes unveil the president’s thinking over such a serious matter as the state’s external policy.

Basescu enjoys acting in a non-presidential fashion. Like many other Romanian politicians, he has tried, over the years of his political career, to make good friends with journalists, and he is known in media circles for his freewheeling style in private, off-the-record meetings. His friendships with newspaper people sometimes evolved into long-lasting personal and/or professional relations, such as that with Claudiu Saftoiu, a former journalist who has gone from running his electoral campaigns to becoming a presidential aide. But the incidents with Rosca Stanescu shows that being too close a friend to influential media people, who have their own interests and games to play, could bring complications for the president.

Basescu is aware of that, and going public about a journalist’s attempt to influence his decision might be a sign that, although he has no problem using the media to boost his popularity, he is not prepared to be a victim of his own friendships.

Alex Ulmanu lectures on journalism and works for Evenimentul Zilei.