The first episode of the Romanian Media Matrix Podcast series will focus on funding. First, a short overview of how the Romanian media is funded will introduce the topic, and then two case studies will explore unusual funding cases and how they underline the most vulnerable actors in the media system. The case of the Hungarian language media in Romania will show us how state money, when coming from two states with a seemingly conflicting history leads to a subservient, controlled media. And then, we’ll stay in the area of small media serving small publics, but we’ll look at independent journalistic projects jumping through financial loops to keep that independence.

My guest for this episode are Zoltán Sipos, journalist at Átlatszó Erdély, Cluj-Napoca and Ioana Avădani, president of the Center for Independent Journalism, Bucharest.

Original music for this episode was composed and performed by András Gaat.
Track title: The World Is On Fire And I Hear You Whisper.

 References:

The full text of the Romanian Media Matrix Report is available online here: https://cmds.ceu.edu/Romania.

More on the Hungarian Government’s funding of Hungarian media from Transylvania, available online here: https://atlatszo.ro/en/important-en/media-funding-record-in-transylvania-a-network-of-businesses-covered-in-mist/