The Committee to Protect Journalists included Romania in their report, "Attacks on the Press in 2008: Europe and Central Asia Developments". According to this report:
To put this in perspective, the Committee to Protect Journalists essentially condemned the Romanian government as inhumane for refusing to allow a law that would impose a censorship regime on the Romanian news media. There would be no reason for the CPJ to mention this law in Romania unless they supported it because the law was deemed unconstitutional, thus testifying to the effectiveness of the Romanian constitutional court. So why does the CPJ mention Romania in the 2008 report? Is there some mistake?
On June 25, 2008, the Romanian Senate unanimously adopted a draft law initiated by the nationalist PRM Senator Gheorghe Funar and the Liberal Party deputy Ioan Ghise. The law required that news be broadcast "equally in a positive and negative way in order to improve the general climate and to offer the chance to the public to have a balanced view of everyday life, psychologically and emotionally as well". Essentially, Funar and Ghise wanted to make Romanians more free by improving the national psyche, diverting Romanians from their tendency to fatalism and pessimism in order to fashion a newer, happier, more optimistic breed of citizen. The Committee to Protect Journalists agreed, and perhaps thought journalists might be safer and happier if they were required to broadcast the bright side of life more frequently.
But some happiness-haters tried to ruin the fun for everyone. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) protested the adoption of this law by the Romanian Senate. EFJ Chairman, Arne Konig, remarked:
"One can hardly think about a more absurd proposal than a 'good
news and bad news' law...This is obvious
political interference in the editorial work of journalists. We cannot
understand the motivation of this law and we call on the President of
Romania to veto it."
Others in oppostion to this law included the National Audiovisual Council of Romania (who was designated as the group to distinguish happy news from bad news), the Union of Professional Journalists, Reporters without Borders, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Human Rights Commission of the Romanian Senate. Various reasons for opposition to the law were articulated:
- It did not include criteria for classifying news into positive or negative categories.
- It would add an additional layer of bureaucracy to the journalistic endeavor, a highly subjective layer in which some bureaucrats would be allowed to determine what constituted good news and bad news. Such a bureaucracy would be prone to corruption and capture.
- It was unconstitutional, according to Article 30, Paragraph 1.
- It was not in accordance with the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 10, Paragraph 1 or the Ethic Code of Journalists.
- It chipped away at the professionalization of Romanian media by placing all value judgments about content in the hands of the state.
- It was part of a larger political pressure campaign by the Romanian government to silence journalists, including recriminalization of defamation and libel, plans to jail journalists who release video or audio recordings without the subject's approval, and going against the Law of Free Access to Public Information.
- It assumes minds can be programmed. Or that a national psyche exists.
Fortunately, the Romanian Constitutional Court ruled in favor of upholding the democratic nature of the Romanian constitution on July 11, 2008. (Note that this is not the date listed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, who listed June 11 as the date for the court ruling.) The OSCE expressed its approval of the ruling. The AFP noted that only China and North Korea had passed similar press laws. And the Romanian press heaved a sign of relief.
All of this goes to show that freedom of the press is still targeted by Romanian legislators, the Romanian Constitutional Court respects freedom of the press and the Romanian constitution, and there is no telling why the Committee to Protect Journalists featured this as an ongoing problem in their 2008 report.
