Romania: 50% of news must be positive, says law proposal

Last week, the Romanian Senate unanimously voted a law proposal forcing media to distribute 50% of positive news.

According to its instigators, the law will help to fight against “the extraordinary harms of negative news and their irreversible effects on health and people’s lives.”

The Senate wishes that TV and radio news programs feature as much ‘negative’ as ‘positive’ news.

The Romanian’s National Council for Audiovisual broadcasting is to validate the law - under which it will have the responsibility to decide what constitutes good or bad news.

But the Council swiftly criticized the law. “News is news, it is neither positive nor negative, it simply reflects reality,” said the Council’s president, Rasvan Popescu.

Press freedom organizations such as Reporters Without Borders have also criticized the proposal, comparing it to similar laws in authoritarian regimes such as North Korea.

While a number of editors may agree that the news agenda tends to be vastly ‘negative’, no law should seek to force the reverse.

– By Jean Yves Chainon

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