Romanian politicians want to select journalists

In Romania a parliamentary commission is to decide in future over who may work as a journalist. The draft law was introduced by the liberal MP Ioan Ghişe, who had already attempted in 2008 to force the media to make 50 percent of the news reported positive. Outrageous, writes the daily România Liberă: "In Romania not only the oligarchs but also politicians of all stripes want as big a slice as possible of the Romanian media. And if they can't exert pressure or buy out the media, they want to clamp them in the stocks. ... Since 1862 - when the first press law appeared in Romania - right up to the present politicians have been trying to tell journalists what they must do. But in so doing they fail to understand that ... 'the sublimity of the laws of a free society is measured in their never dictating what one must not do', in the words of [French philosopher] Montesquieu, who introduced the concept of the separation of powers."

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