The Reporters without Borders ranking doesn’t reflect with precision the Romanian media realities

Interview with Maria Cernat, made for the media emission “The Network” on the cultural programme of the Bulgarian national radio

For a third successive year Bulgara is at the unprestigious 111 place in the ranking of Reporters without Borders for media freedom in the world. This means that at the level of the EU Bulgarian journalism has the greatest problems. “Corruption and collusion between media, politicians and oligarchs is widespread in Bulgaria”, the report says, being quoted by the radio Free Europe. 

Each year the announcement of this report provokes discussions in the Bulgarian journalistic community. The talks are usually very depressive – how things ever go to the worse. The blog “The Bridge of Friendship” could join this talk, but in this case prefers to make something else – to learn how this ranking is seen in Romania. In this sense the blog’s editor Vladimir Mitev received a proposal from the media show “The Network” of programme “Hristo Botev” of the Bulgarian National Radio to make an interview. 

Maria Cernat became the interlocutor. She combines a few ipostases. She is a professor of media and communication in the National School for Administrative and Political Sciences at the University “Titu Maiorescu”. She is the vice president of the Institute for Social Solidarity. She is also a key author of the Romanian section of the site “The Barricade”.

To what extent does the ranking of “Reporters without Borders” reflect the Romanian realities? What is the most serious problem before Romanian journalists in their work? How is the relatively advanced place of Romania in this ranking – much to the head of Hungary and Bulgaria, being explained?

“I think that the most important problem is first of related not with what you can say,

but to what extent you can live with things, which you are free to say. In other words, how much can you make from writing articles. This is the main problem.

It is very difficult to make a living as a journalist in today’s Romania”, Maria Cernat explained. 

The whole interview can be seen here with subtitles in English language:

Photo: Maria Cernat (source: YouTube)

Read in Romanian language!

Read in Bulgarian language!

About Author

Vladimir Mitev

Vladimir Mitev is a Bulgarian Romanian-speaking journalist. He has interacted with many Bulgarian and Romanian media outlets, including Bulgarian National Radio, Mediapool, all major Bulgarian television stations, Darik Radio, and more (Bulgaria); Radio Romania, The Liberal Community 1848, all the major Romanian television stations; DoR; Libertatea; PressHub; and others (Romania); The Analysis, Acorn Radio (USA); Open Democracy (UK); voxEurop (France); the Observatory for the Balkans and the Caucasus; The Other News (Italy); The Institute for Central Europe (Poland); Argument (Czechia); Merce (Hungary); Bilten (Croatia); and Agora (the Republic of Moldova).
He promotes the idea of non-hegemonic, mutually empowering interactions in Central and Southeastern Europe that could contribute to the formation of a dynamic regional identity and connect citizens to the global community.

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