Indicator history

The Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center's Report on the implementation of The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania makes assessments and provides information on minority media and on minority media professionals. We have made a selection of relevant information below. The information can be contextualized by reading the report, whose link is provided under Source:

"Endeavours to promote inter-ethnic dialogue and the correct presentation in the press of themes related to ethno-cultural minority communities have been made especially by non-governmental organizations. The Press Monitoring Agency – Catavencu Academy (www.mma.ro), the Centre for Independent Journalism (www.cji.ro), the Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Centre, which initiated the Divers.ro project, have all implemented over the years relevant projects in this field. The experts of these organizations consider that in the last years significant improvements have been made in presenting minority issues in the Romanian language press. An important role in this aspect is played by both amendments of legislation and the integration in the Romanian language editorial teams of more and more minority ethnics who are able to convey a relevant perspective on the life of ethnic communities." [1]

"[...] a significant contribution is made by organizations of national minorities, which in most cases have made possible the participation of some members of the ethnic minority at journalism courses but also at languages courses in the country in which the respective language is the official language."

"Associative structures of journalists which are users of a minority language exist only for the Hungarian language press, Romanian Union of Hungarian Journalists (Uniunea Jurnaliştilor Maghiari din România) and recently an association of Romani journalists. In these organizations are discussed aspects related to deontology, priority themes of communities and sometimes are organized courses for journalists." [2]

"At university level (undergraduate) financed by the state, Babes-Bolyai University has within the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences a Journalism Department with training in German (9 places) and Hungarian (12 places). There are also special places for minorities at the Journalism Faculties of some public universities, but in these cases the training is realized in Romanian. For example Andrei Saguna University from Constanta allocates a place at the Journalism Faculty for students from the Turkish ethnic group. More universities allocate supplementary places for Roma students." [3]

The members of the Administration Councils of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Society and the Romanian Television Society “ are voted by the Parliament, and one member of each board is nominated by the national minorities’ parliamentary groups. In the same spirit, if regional studios also have programmes in national minority languages, their Directing Committees will have in their composition representatives of the producers of such programmes.” [4]

"The programmes produced in Bucharest by the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Society  [SRR] are created by specialized editorial teams, the editorial team of the Hungarian and German programmes is located in the SRR’s headquarters, which produces Hungarian and German programmes which are afterwards adopted by the Târgu-Mureş, Cluj and Timişoara regional radio stations. The editorial team of Hungarian and German programmes weekly creates 380 minutes of Hungarian programmes and 370 minutes of German programmes. Programmes in national minority languages are also produced and broadcasted by Cluj, Constanţa, Iasi, Resita, Târgu-Mureş and Timişoara regional radio stations. In producing these programmes, the editors consult with representatives and minority organizations. There are also collaborations with public stations from Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia for the common producing of some programmes." [5]

"It is relevant to mention [...] the current situation of journalists who produce press materials in minority languages.[...] a small  number of producers of the minority languages programmes are employed by SRTV [Romanian Television Broadcasting Society]. This is due both to the fact that the acceptance of the personnel scheme is made at central level and to the small number of users of some languages. There is a huge difference between the situation of minority languages programmes which were present in the TVR program schedule before 2008, where there are trained employees with working experience, and that of newly introduced programmes with the creation of TVR3. In these cases the programmes are realized by collaborators which are not trained in audiovisual press. So, if we talk about the need for training of human resources from the editorial team, two aspects must be kept in view: the professional developing in the journalistic field and a very good mastering of the respective language." [6]

Source:

[1] Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center (2009) Report on the implementation of The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Chapter on Media, page 6, available at http://www.edrc.ro/docs/docs/carta/Report-Lang-Charter-MM-final-ENG.pdf (20.02.2012.)

[2] Idem. [1] page 20

[3] Idem. [1] page 20-21.

[4] Idem. [1] page 2

[5] Idem. [1] pp. 15-16

[6] Idem. [1] page 19-20