A Century of Media Capture in Romania

The first years of democracy after the fall of national-communism in Romania have seen media enjoy some forms of freedom. But old vices made their way into the new political landscape, together with the less familiar ills of capitalism. In what follows, the author proposes a critical overview of the historical developments of Romanian media market before and after 1989 and of the mechanisms brought on by the new system that transferred state control over media to market control. To this end, the article makes a brief account of the pre-1989 media system, going through the media capture by the monarchical and the following communist state. It then looks at the liberalization period after the fall of communism, the privatization of the media and its capture by private interests, especially in the form of “media moguls”. The study also looks at the state of public television after ’89 and how state control was reshaped to be compatible with capitalist democracy. Getting closer to present day, the article analyses how the financial crisis and the covid-19 crisis made journalists more vulnerable, but also examines some promising alternative journalistic models, brought by digital media.