TVR chief Doina Gradea retorts in the ‘pig head’ scandal, accuses journalist Dragos Patraru of pressures

The public television (TVR) chief, Doina Gradea on Friday retorted in the scandal stirred following journalist Dragos Patraru’ recordings revealing Gradea’s offending journalists from the news department.

Doina Gradea accused that some of the recordings released by Dragos Patrary were actually private phone talks that she had in her office without anyone else being there and that they would have been garbled. Moreover, the TVR chief accused Dragos Patraru of pressures.

I have never thought I could live such an experience that some private phone talks, while I was alone in my office, would become a story. In any civilized country, therefore in Romania as well, recording these conversations without my consent is an illegal action,” Gradea says in a press release.

Obviously, these threats had been carefully avoided when the illegal recordings had been edited and cut, in meetings or talks with the same TV maker or in other private talks where he was not present”, the release further reads.

Gradea is accusing Patraru that he was the one that had pressured her at a time when the contract of his show “Starea Natiei” is being renegotiated with TVR.

However, she apologized for the nickname “pig head” that she had addressed while referring to one of the reporters from the news department.

To the extent that the dignity of any person or colleague has been damaged, I want to assure them that I had no intention to offend them in any way, so I publicly apologize for this situation,” Gradea also said.

In the end, the TVR chief mentioned that “she will take all legal actions to defend the interest of the institution”. “As private person, I reserve the right, by the same legal means, to protect my personal space of any brutal and illegal violation of this space”, Gradea concluded.

Save Romania Union (USR) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) on Thursday requested the resignation of the public television (TVR) chief, Doina Gradea, accused by journalists of putting pressure on the employees.

Disclosures by Dragos Patraru and Catalin Tolontan, quoted by realitatea.net, showed that Doina Gradea believed the public television employees should be grateful to the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) for the larger budget this year and suggests editorial freedom is negotiable when the ruling coalition approves the public television’s funding.

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