This article is not new. But is very useful in pointing out how and what journalism has became. And in Romania also, don’t think we are special.

We got AdPlayers.ro, an advertising blog, who charge 5.000€ a year for listing a company on their directory and bashes companies and people who do not subscribe. I know of two such deals:

  1. after McCann refused to pay, two articles about how their CEO is chasing young women and how is pushing his girlfriends business in fabor of his own.
  2. claiming members of a internet competition jury are secretaries and ditch diggers, because they did not hide these jobs they did 10 or 20 years ago from their resume.

We got PaginaDeMedia.ro, a media blog, who has an even brighter strategy:

  • if they have a a contract with a company that does layoffs or cutbacks on expenses, they will go the extra mile to explain how good that is for the company. one of their famous articles was about how Ringier, the publishing giant, will save 5.000€ a month if they make employees pay for the coffee they got for free (in limit of one a day).
  • if they don’t, they usually write a decent article, but incite or allow the most rude and miserable comments you an think of, all bashing the company. maybe then the company can see the positive of paying them.

We got Iulian Comanescu, notorius gun for hire, who did what PaginaDeMedia.ro does before them, who managed to have contracts with almost all media companies in Romania. He had the habit of writing mean articles (wrong facts, bleak presumptions, bankrupcy)about companies and then reaching out to them "to get the facts straight". I asked him at a conference about blackmailing companies through articles and his response was:

well, the comments on my blog are closed and I do not write so often now, so I do not know what are you talking about.

Some people smiled.

We got Alex Bradut Ulmanu, former journalism teacher, who did a nice hit job on Lee Wilkins, asking for a lot of money for lousy content. Wilkins did not know Romanian at the time, hired Ulmanu to manage and hire writers for MyKinda.ro, he did, but the articles we so lousy it did not attract any readership, MyKinda going bankrupt after a year.

And more. Much more. And they are peons in the face of famed journalists, who do this kind of stuff for big money.

 

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