Local association aiming to become an IAB Europe affiliate

The first general assembly of the IAB Romania Association took place on Thursday, November 23rd. The Association aims to affiliate itself to IAB Europe and to solve problems such as overlayers proliferation on Romanian sites. The first assembly resulted in establishing the management structure of the Association. | More…

Experimental site of well-known satirical weekly

Academia Catavencu started Facemcatavencu.ro [RO] (’WemakeCatavencu.ro’), an experimental site intended as the making-of of the magazine’s site, Catavencu.ro [RO], which is also to be launched soon. Catavencu.ro has not been redesigned in several years and offers most of its content on a per-pay basis. A source from Academia Catavencu told Comanescu.ro that the magazine’s site only has 200 to 300 subscribers, most of whom are from the Romanian diaspora.

Facemcatavencu.ro will be turned into an Internet club after Catavencu.ro’s relaunch.

Academia Catavencu is a popular Romanian political satirical weekly that sells between 40 and 50,000 copies per day. The publication has recently been taken over by Sorin Ovidiu Vintu, one of the controversial Romanian billionaires who got massively involved in the media market in 2006.

Libertatea’s campaign: anti-British folklore, figures about high drugs intake in UK

Libertatea, Wednesday, 22 November: UK is ‘the European capital of drugs’ (sic), figures showing the high use of illegal substances in Britain, a Romanian musician called Jan de la Craiova (Jan from Craiova) that has composed an anti-British ‘manea’. ‘Manea’ (pl.: ‘manele’) is a hard to define phenomenon very popular during the last years, simliar to the ‘turbo-folk’ in Serbia: a mix of Turkish, Gypsy and Romanian music, with a pathetic singer and poor electronic (keyboards & drum machine) orchestration. Words are also pathetic and in general stupid, which in the anti-British song reads:

The Englishmen’s Grudge

Many Romanians with a big soul
Have left the country,
They’re the kings of ideas,
The Englishmen’s grudge.

They look for the straw in our eye
Try to kick us out from their country,
Make up diseases,
Only to get rid of us.

Ref.:
Still
We’re worthy Romanians
At home and abroad.

• The Libertatea story [RO] with the original words.

The tabloids war ending: The Sun silent, Libertatea deals with the AIDS infected Romanian migrants issue

Libertatea published today a new piece [RO] coping with the negative reports about Romanian migrants in The Sun newspaper. The Romanian tabloid refers to a piece printed in its UK opponent on November 16, called ‘Migrants’ AIDS epidemic threat [EN]‘. Some officials from the Romanian health system say the issue is well taken care of. The Romanian daily also unburies a statement several years old, belonging to Bill Clinton, that has congratulated Romania for the way it copes with AIDS.

The story ends with an approval letter of a Romanian veterans association.

The Sun didn’t refer to any trouble caused by Romanian migrants in the UK since November 17, when Libertatea’s campaign ‘Look who’s talking’ started. The today’s piece in Libertatea’s tone of voice is more neutral compared to the first episodes of the campaign, where the British have been called ‘drunkards, pedophiles and hooligans’.

The president of the Romanian Press Club resigns

The president of the most important Romanian journalists’ and editors’ association resigned on Monday, November 20. Cristian Tudor Popescu, a public figure and also the director of the Gandul newspaper, invoked as a reason for his resignation from the chair of the Romanian Press Club the loss of prestige of the journalist job in Romania, as a result of the massive human resources moves on the market, fuelled by the money of several controversial Romanian billionaires. | More…

The tabloids war: We’re not Europe’s tuberculars, says Libertatea

Libertatea’s ‘Look who’s talking’ campaign, aiming the negative reports about Romanian migrants in The Sun, continues today with a story called ‘We’re not Europe’s tuberculars [RO]‘. Libertatea promises it will answer all the allegations previously published in The Sun and addresses an piece printed on November 3 by the British tabloid, expressing some concerns that TB could be brought in UK by Romanian immigrants.

After observing that The Sun has blasted a ‘media bomb’ that ‘hurt the pride of every Romanian’, Libertatea says Romania is provided with ‘the most efficient and well functioning TB control system in Europe’. A medical doctor says Romanian TB patients are not likely to leave the care they take in Romania to go to the UK.

Libertatea also reports the intention of the PSD (social democratic party) to sue The Sun for the negative stories published about Romania.

The ‘media bomb’ ‘blasted’ by The Sun might be of less importance than Libertatea says. Searches with ‘Romania’, ‘Romanian’ and ‘tuberculosis’ on the newspaper’s site [EN] only produce a piece titled ‘1,500 migrants a day come in [EN]‘ dated November 3, where the issue of TB coming from Romania is reserved a single sentence, in a sloppy paragraph, towards the end.

• How it started

Exclusive fragments from book of Romanian secret police defector, about the JFK assasination, posted on Romanian blog

Ion Mihai Pacepa, a Romanian Securitate (secret police) general that defected to the Americans in the eighties, is to publish in the US a book on the role of the KGB in JFK’s assassination. A Romanian journalist, Andrei Badin, got the permission to take over several fragments of the book on his blog, Andreibadin.blogspot.com.

• The introduction and the first chapter [RO-EN] (scroll down for Pacepa’s English text)
• Ion Mihai Pacepa’s bio [EN] in Wikipedia.

The tabloids war: Naomi Campbell might pay the ‘dumb Romanian’ 1 million $, claims Libertatea

The Romanian tabloid ‘Libertatea’ published today exclusive extracts [RO] from Naomi Campbell’s housekeeper’s complaint. The ‘dumb Romanian’, a.k.a. Gaby Gibson, stated to the authorities she has been hit, insulted, deprived of freedom and threatened with the Police by the supermodel. According to ‘Libertatea’, while working as a housekeeper for Naomi Campbell for a couple of months, Gibson was insulted in several occasions, in words like: ‘You’re no longer in the third world, you stupid!’, ‘Are all Romanians as stupid as you?’, ‘How long will it take you, the third world, to get in row with the rest?’, or: ‘When are you finally going to learn English?’

On January 17th, 2006, Naomi Campbell assaulted Gibson because she couldn’t find a pair of Stella McCartney jeans, claims ‘Libertatea’.

• ‘Naomi Campbell might pay the Romanian 1,000,000 $ [RO]‘, Libertatea Sunday edition, 19 November 2006 [RO]
• Facsimile of the Libertatea’s 1st page: | More…

The ‘tabloids war’ continues: ‘Libertatea’ takes over Naomi Campbell’s ‘dumb romanian’ housekeeper story

The ‘tabloids war’ between UK’s ‘The Sun’ and Romania’s ‘Libertatea’ continued today with a piece (RO) published in ‘Libertatea’, the most popular Romanian newspaper. On Saturday, ‘Libertatea’ reported the case of Naomi Campbell’s ‘dumb Romanian’ housekeeper, apparently ’stolen from the enemy’, because ‘The Sun’ had published the story one day earlier (Ex-maid brands Naomi a racist, EN). ‘Libertatea’ claims it has got the 40-pages complaint of the housekeeper and promises extensive extracts from it for the Sunday issue. | More…

The editorial director of ‘Adevarul’ resigns

Corina Dragotescu, the editorial director of ‘Adevarul’, announced today the newspaper’s owner she will leave the team. Dragotescu stated for the NewsIn press agency she can’t work ‘with a person that tore an editorial team in two and moved a part somewhere else’. NewsIn assumes the ‘person’ is Razvan Corneteanu, who recently left Ringier Romania for a general manager position in the new press company of the controversial Romanian oil mogul Dinu Patriciu. More than 50 per cent of the ‘Libertatea’ team, a Ringier title and the most succesful Romanian newspaper of the moment, also left several days after to relaunch ‘Averea’, another title owned by Patriciu.

Dragotescu told NewsIn she has some negotiations with two Romanian rolling news TV stations, Antena 3 and Realitatea TV. According to sources consulted by Comanescu.ro, the Realitatea TV deal is more likely. She is one of the politics experts often invited in talk-shows. | More…