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Traian Basescu wanted to show that he was a politician who risked denouncing a phenomenon of the media nowadays.
At the jubilee of the General Assembly of the Great Cities in Romania, Traian Basescu quickly went over the great problems of the Romanian city administrations in 2008 in order to say certain things regarding his speech on the Otopeni airport on Friday, the 14th of March 2008. The reason for that is the reaction of the newspapers and televisions in Romania to his attack against the media. President Traian Basescu wanted to say he didn’t attack the entire media, but some measures taken by a part of it. Therefore, the group of journalists that support the President no matter what said the President announced his position as far as the media was concerned on the airport. However, we believe that, on Saturday, the 15th of March 2008, the President did not announce his position. The Presdient did no more than to restate his position in a spectacular manner.
In Otopeni, as well as at the Mayors’ Assembly, Traian Basescu wanted to show that he was a politician who risked denouncing a phenomenon of the media nowadays. Under the circumstances in which certain people own parts of the media, many journalists develop great campaigns against the economical and political enemies of the owners of the newspapers they work for. These are campaigns in which they receive high sums of money from their bosses to say certain things in their articles. The theory according to which there are journalists that write on command bribed by interest groups isn’t new in the politician career of Traian Basescu. He said it when he was the mayor of Bucharest, when he ran for President and afterwards, when he became the Romanian President. He said the Adrian Nastase Government paid the journalists when he was the Mayor of Bucharest.
During the first months of mandate, the financers were the illegitimate groups of interest. Now, Traian Basescu believes the media moguls pay the journalists. The President searched for a metaphor to describe these journalists and he said they were like ATMs. The theory of journalism on command is not new in the after-the-Revolution period either. There have been a lot of politicians who said certain journalists were paid to denigrate their image. The money came from the American Imperialism, the Hungarians, the Russians, CIA, KGB, the Mafia, and the Opposition. They also accused me of being paid by some of the groups mentioned above and by other political formations that existed in Romania. On numerous occasions, I showed that looking for other reason than my own beliefs for the articles I wrote didn’t give any other results than to make us think of the well-known thesis of Lenin in the party organization and literature on the 13th of November 1905, according to which writing depends on the money of the bourgeois.
In the 50s, the imperialist groups materialized this thesis in denouncing the ones who criticized the Stalinist dictatorship as agents paid with US dollars. Now, Traian Basescu says the journalists write as ordered by the newspaper owners and are paid in euros. For the Bolsheviks in 1950, the paid journalists doubted the popular democratic state. Traian Basescu says that, in 2008, the journalists that criticize him doubt the authority of the state institutions. Traian Basescu was educated at one of the most primitive schools in the communist period: the military school. One can easily see that!
When the journalists he attacked rightfully reacted after being named enemies of the people, Traian Basescu defended himself by saying he didn’t attack the freedom of the press because he didn’t release any decree to stop the freedom of speech. He certainly didn’t release any decree that would send the journalists he accused on the chair. He didn’t do it, because this is impossible for him to do at the moment. But wouldn’t he do it if he had the needed means?!
• Translated by Sorin Bălan
