Romanian Journalism

Romanian TV News Christmas Bingo

by Craig Turp December 20, 2011 Bucharest

As eagerly awaited as Christmas itself (but not, of course, as eagerly awaited as the highlight of Christmas: The Economist’s Double Issue), it’s time once again to play Romanian TV News Christmas Bingo. You know the deal. As all Romanian media outlets follow the same formula when reporting news and events, you can usually guess [...]

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What’s wrong with ‘Ceausescu Tourism’?

by Craig Turp October 31, 2011 Media

Why do we do it? Why do we watch questionable talk shows on questionable television channels (in this case Antena 3) knowing how loaded the content is, how subjective the guests are and – to all intents and purposes – knowing exactly what will be said. Last night the subject was a report that had [...]

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Reports of the reopening of Bucharest’s Grigore Antipa Museum of Natural History were premature

by Craig Turp January 10, 2011 Bucharest

We got a wonderful, unexpected Christmas present a fortnight ago, when we saw this article on the website of Romanian daily newspaper Gandul, announcing with much fanfare that Bucharest’s Grigore Antipa Museum of Natural History would soon, finally, be reopening its doors after a long and expensive refit. (Similar articles have appeared before, like this [...]

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Colourful stories sell newspapers. Get over it

by Craig Turp January 9, 2011 Romania

Foreign journalists should be banned from reporting anything that does not make Romania look like a modern, successful country. Absurd? Yes, but reading through the lines of some other blog posts this weekend, that is exactly what some people have been suggesting in the wake of this story about witchcraft becoming a formal, taxable profession, [...]

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Lies, damned lies, and tourism statistics

by Craig Turp January 4, 2011 Bucharest

They are at it again. Not a week after moaning about Romania’s exclusion from some meaningless lists, part of the country’s media has itself all in a tizzy about how many tourists visited Bulgaria in the first half of last year compared with Romania. This article claims that over three million people visited Bulgaria in [...]

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The city council has spoken: Bucharest will not be hosting the 2020 Olympic Games

by Craig Turp December 17, 2010 Bucharest

You have to love ambition. And Bucharest’s Mayor Sorin Oprescu has plenty of ambition. He earlier this week announced his desire to see Bucharest host the Olympic Games in 2020, bless him. Today, Bucharest City Council decided hosting the Olympic Games was not a priority, and voted Oprescu’s idea down. All very predictable. What we [...]

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Romania drops the leu and adopts kilometres of motorway as new currency

by Craig Turp November 19, 2010 Bucharest

It’s official. All costs of all things in Romania will from today be measured not in the local currency – the leu – or any other currency (euros, pounds, dollars or North Korean luncheon vouchers) but instead in kilometres of motorway. Local newspaper Gandul was the first to break the news this morning, leading on [...]

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