ALDE's Tariceanu, about journalists: You're annoying, irritating, but you are democracy's last stand

ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats) chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu on Friday sent a message to journalists, on the World Press Freedom Day, saying they are "the beautiful madmen" of the society and that democracy unconditionally relies on their words and writings. 

"A well known American journalist years ago wrote that, if thousands of people were coming out screaming from a building on fire, while a few others were trying to go in, at the same time, then the latter were most probably journalists. The conclusion is that you are a little bit mad, but democracy unconditionally relies on your words and writings. You are the beautiful madmen of the society and world couldn't be imagined without you. They said well who said it that it's easier without a government than without the press, and I tell you this as a former head of Government. As someone who could easily hold you accountable for his white hair. We, Romanians, until the fall of communism, had a very special relation with the press, as we well remember. We had partisan newspapers and pugnacious newspapers, intensely satirized by uncle Iancu [writer Ion Luca Caragiale - editor's note]. We had journalists who were imprisoned during King Carol II's time or during the communist regime, for the crime of saying their opinion. We had, until late, in the villages or the cities' slums the old one-channel speaker linked to the common radio station, we had the Japanese or German "transistors," which we bought in secret, while others were going to the moon. We had the black and white TV sets, because of which we were always running out of TV lamps, we had antennas to catch the Bulgarian, Serbian or Hungarian television programmes, which antennas were in fact aluminum basins, which were pretty hard to find in the stores back then," said Tariceanu. 

He also added that, during "Uncle Nicu's" time [referring here to former communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu - editor's note], Romanians perfected this unique technique of reading the newspapers and magazine from first to last page, the first pages being back then dedicated to the communist party and "the great commander," while they were, in fact secretly listening to Free Europe, Voice of America or BBC. 

Which reminds me that, after the world economic crisis emerged, the democratic states granted significant financial aids to the media trusts hit by the crisis, in order to help them survive, while in our case, unfortunately, nothing similar happened. 

"For there is no Romanian media trusts that expanded abroad, like it happens in the former communist states like Poland or The Czech Republic; in fact, we barely have Romanian trusts left inside the country. And every time that a media company dies, the Internet's memory becomes poorer too and the past fades away. This is sad, regrettable, unjust. We need that, from now on, beyond the beautiful words, to think of concrete modalities to support the mass-media and make it stronger as before again. For we do not want to reach that point again when we set our antennas to receive the news from Bulgaria or from the Serbians or other foreign channels, while searching for fair and honest information. Let me wish you a very sincere "Many Happy Returns of the Day!" on your day and to ask you to always remain the beautiful madmen of our society. You are annoying, irritating, but you are democracy's last stand, you are irreplaceable and we need you very much," said Calin Popescu-Tariceanu.