National Press Review, 2 May

The newspapers of the week starter commented on the announcement of businessman Elan Schwartzenberg that he took over 90 percent of the shares in the Realitatea TV channel.

‘Rise and fall of media mogul Vîntu’, ‘Vîntu’s Surprises’, ‘Realitatea gets Elan’ were the expressions forming the headlines show in the press of the day.

The România Liberă: Businessman Elan Schwartzenberg was mandated by Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu children (obviously under the orders from their father) to take 90 percent of the shares of the company owning the Realitatea TV.

To what extent will this transaction change the side of the matter in the war to take control of the TV station? The newspaper tried to provide an answer. Can Elan quickly remove Ghiţă from the Realitatea?

The Adevărul wrote that the transaction does not affect the contract management of Sebastian Ghiţă and it recounts the battles of the so-called war for the Realitatea: confrontations between bodyguards, dismissals, resignations, audio recordings through the parking lots, detentions and arrests.

Finally, the Evenimentul Zilei invited other journalists to express their opinion on the new episode. ‘Sale means Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu disappearing from the public eye’, Cristian Tudor Popescu said. ‘It is just one of another Vîntu’s bluff’, Ion Cristoiu stated.

Other topics in the daily news. ‘Cosa Nostra money laundering in Glina.’ One of the Italian mafia leaders hides their black money in Romania, the Adevărul said. Prosecutors in the Peninsula tracked some funds of over 300 million euros, laundered in waste business from Glina, the largest landfill in Eastern Europe.

The Jurnalul Naţional: ‘Ungureanu said that SIE had warned on the coming crisis.’ Director, Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu said yesterday that the institution led by him had early warned the politicians on the emergence of the economic crisis, but how they used the information was not related to his obligations anymore.

România Liberă opened its today edition with ‘Bargain food secrets – why we must beware of the products trying to fool us.’

Butter – 2 lei per bundle, milk – 2 lei 70 per liter, chocolate – 1 leu and 50 bani, or orange juice – 1 leu per two-liter bottle. They can be found on the shelves, but they only try to be what they are definitely not. The super-cheap butter does not have 65 but 80 percent of hydrogenated vegetable fats and in no time it will spread out, the România Liberă wrote.

The same with the 2.70 lei milk: only half of it contains milk, the rest is a hoax, a dairy product, low in protein. And so on – with the help of the specialist, the newspaper discomfit the myth of cheap food on a whole page.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University