'The role and mission of public mass media' was the topic of the debate organized on Sunday, in the context of World Press Freedom Day, by Romanian Television, in partnership with Radio Romania and the National Press Agency AGERPRES.

The aim of the event was to contribute to strengthening the role of public media and to a better understanding of current challenges in the field.

The event brought to the forefront current issues of major interest to society, in a media context in constant transformation, and aimed to provide an open framework for dialogue and exchange of ideas between important actors in the field. Participants addressed, on this occasion, the role and mission of public media institutions, the issue of TV tax, as well as the impact of the Media Freedom Act (EMFA) on the media landscape in Romania.

'We are trying to mark what is called World Press Freedom Day, together, journalists, people from institutions involved in the media and future journalists. (...) It is a necessary event because we are trying to answer, on this occasion, some questions that have existed for some time in the wider space of Romanian society related to the role, mission, and activity of public media institutions, questions that take on even greater weight in our days when, as we well know, there is this explosion of information technology, there is the onslaught of social networks, user-created content,' said, in the opening of the debate, the moderator of the first panel, journalist Mihai Rădulescu.

The President and General Director of TVR, Adriana Săftoiu, claimed that she took the initiative to organize the debate on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day to try to find an answer to the question 'Who still needs public television?'.

The General Director of the National Press Agency AGERPRES, Claudia Nicolae, conveyed congratulations for organizing the event, stating that, 'for the first time, three public institutions, TVR, Radio and AGERPRES, are sitting around the same table and discussing their future.'

'There has never been such an initiative before and I think it was time. Why? Because I'm sure you all could have followed the report of the organization Reporters Without Borders the other day. It is a report and an index that highlights a difficult situation of the press worldwide. It is the first time I say the word 'difficult', because, indeed, trust in the media has degraded. Maybe we are partly to blame, but maybe new technologies have also left us a little behind. Why do I say that? Because AGERPRES, at the moment, is the provider of primary information. That's what we were, that's what we remain. Maybe sometimes we are not so sufficient at the level of investigations, at the level of discovery of facts, but we are the base. The informative base, assumed, objective, from which the informative materials continue to originate,' stated Claudia Nicolae.

The first panel - 'Does public media still matter?' - had as speakers the president of the Board of Directors of the Center for Independent Journalism, Ioana Avădani, the editor-in-chief of RFI, Ovidiu Nahoi, journalist Ovidiu Vanghele from the Center for Media Investigations, and Mircea Toma, member of the National Council of Romania, the discussion being moderated by TVR journalist Mihai Rădulescu.

RFI editor-in-chief, Ovidiu Nahoi, argued that public media is needed to the extent that society still needs moderation, because 'the main mission of a public media, regardless of whether it is television or radio, can only be achieved through a certain kind of moderation which means, in fact, accepting pluralism, which means respecting a certain code of ethics and behavior, and respectability.'

'When a public entity loses its respectability, it has lost everything, it is a very important way to behave, to permanently maintain your respectability, and this is maintained through moderation. The problem is that, yes, an increasingly important part of society, or societies, and this regardless of our will and activity, is losing its appetite for moderation and is looking for increasingly blunt ways, looking for ways of expression that are further and further from moderation. How do we behave? I think there are more questions than answers here,' said Ovidiu Nahoi.

Mircea Toma, member of the National Audiovisual Council, was of the opinion that, paradoxically, sometimes for the public, 'information of public interest is not interesting'.

'It's more interesting something that doesn't seem to respond to things that are important to the public. Important from the point of view of the source, of guiding the decisions you make regarding your fate, to have answers, to have someone to help you navigate life. Non-public, private televisions, they circulate information that is not aimed at helping the citizen navigate, but at helping the owner earn money,' said Mircea Toma.

The second panel - 'TV Tax: Pros or Cons?' - had as guests the general director of TVR, Adriana Săftoiu, the general director of the Romanian Broadcasting Society (SRR), Robert Cristian Schwartz, and SpotMedia Senior Editor, Emilian Isăilă. The moderator of the discussions was the editor-in-chief of Radio România Actualități, Emilian Blînda.

The President and CEO of SRR, Robert Schwartz, stated that, in order for the institution he leads to be able to do its job, it would be necessary to receive 'an extra ten percent' to the existing budget in order to be able to invest in technology, in buildings, 'because some buildings are in a pitiful state.'

'At the moment, neither public television nor public radio can fully fulfill their public mission, because we are underfunded,' Robert Schwartz argued.

In turn, the President and General Director of TVR, Adriana Săftoiu, was of the opinion that funding for public television must come 'not necessarily from the Government, but truly from the citizen, because you give them quality services.'

'I came across the word tax on the first day I was heard at the committee. At this point, if you tell a Romanian about a tax, he runs away. It's very difficult to tell him 'here, another tax'. I think it's too late to use the word tax now. (...) I personally would like, in fact I have been wanting for several months, to reach that moment when what we offer to the public, in terms of programs, content, attitude, ethics and everything you want, would be so good, and to show them that we focus on these things, so that I could, for example, in July, August, say: 'people, we think it would be much better if there was a tax. I know, this word annoys you, we replace it with something more pleasant, contribution, if you like, but it is clear from all the analyses and statistics that where there is a tax, that is, where 'The citizen contributes, the quality is much better,' said Adriana Săftoiu.

Within the third panel - 'Media Freedom Act - provisions, impact, solutions for public media in Romania' - the president of UZPR, Dan Constantin, Orsolya-Eva Borsos, member of the National Council of the Press, the director of Freedom House Romania, Cristina Guseth, and the coordinator of ActiveWatch programs, Răzvan Martin, took the floor, with the general director of the National Press Agency AGERPRES, Claudia Nicolae, as moderator.


The Director General of AGERPRES, Claudia Nicolae, appreciated that, according to the most recent report by the organization Reporters Without Borders, 'for the first time since they make the annual index on press freedom, we have classified the difficult characterization, regarding the media situation across the globe. Romania is a little better off than in 2024, it has climbed six positions.'

UZPR President Dan Constantin emphasized that, in the press freedom ranking presented by the AGERPRES director, even though Romania climbed six places, it only climbed to position 48 or 49, 'which means that we are almost like in football, that is, somewhere where no one pays attention to you.'

The UZPR President recalled that 'on August 8 (2025 - editor's note) the European regulation on media freedom, known by the acronym EMFA, became directly applicable in all EU member states. It is the first European legislative instrument that establishes binding rules for editorial independence, transparency of media ownership and financing, state advertising, protection of journalistic sources and limitation of political or economic pressure on editors.'

He recalled that the EMFA document summarizes all the discussions that have been addressed so far in the TVR debate.

'This regulation responds to visible structures throughout Europe and emerged as a need for protection against increased political pressures on editorial offices, the concentration of media ownership, the non-transparent use of state advertising, the vulnerability of public media services and the growing dependence of the press on digital platforms,' was Dan Constantin's opinion.

Orsolya-Eva Borsos, member of the National Assembly of Romania, stated that 'the EMFA brings a lot of news that really gives room for optimism because many problems were discussed, and the EMFA brings some clarifications, and brings some rules that could be answers to problems and questions.'

She stated that although 'the regulation is perfectly applicable, we must amend the legislation and not only the audiovisual legislation, but also, for example, the TVR legislation, and other laws so that we can implement and define the role of institutions in implementing the EMFA'.

'The CNA is very open, by the way, and we embrace the ideas from EMFA, and we are optimistic that we will be able to implement everything that is in this regulation,' said Orsolya-Eva Borsos.

This was the opinion that when we talk about implementation 'we must always keep the next generation in mind'.

'I believe that the most important problem or question is the problem of trust. What does reliable information mean, what does a reliable source mean, what does a reliable institution mean, how can you trust in a world where chatGPT hallucinates absolutely everything and you have so much information, but you have so few things that can guide you in finding the truth,' Orsolya-Eva Borsos also said.

She assessed that there will be big problems 'in implementing EMFA, because everything sounds very nice as it is in this regulation'.

'I told my colleague that I could be very optimistic, but for now I am pessimistic, because I don't know how we will be able to modify the legislation in such a way that we will be able to fully implement this EMFA. We will see, but I believe that the most important thing is to keep the future in mind in any discussion we have on this topic,' concluded Orsolya-Eva Borsos.AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Petronius Craiu, editing by: Dana Lepadatu;EN - writing by: Catalin Cristian Trandafir)