Famous local journalist to officially take over ‘România Liberă’ newspaper as of February

Journalist Rareș Bogdan will take over ‘România Liberă’ newspaper most probably as of February 1. From his new manager position, he aims to re-launch one of the oldest Romanian newspapers.

“I will take over the editorial department most probably as of January 1. I will be the newspaper’s manager just like Octavian Paler, Emil Hurezeanu or Petre Mihai Bacanu used to be,” Bogdan told Mediafax news agency.

He also mentioned this is a personal project which has nothing to do with Realitatea Media that owns Realitatea TV, where Rareș Bogdan hosts a political show, “Jocuri de Putere”.

Editor-in-chief Dan Cristian Turturica along with other two of the deputy editors-in-chief, Laurentiu Mihu and Gabriel Bejan, left the newspaper at the end of November last year. The departure of the three comes after several months of conflicts within the newspaper, between the editorial staff on the one hand, and the leadership of Adrian Rus and owner Dan Adamescu on the other hand. Tensions were generated by delay in wage payment and disagreements over the management.

‘România Liberă’ was founded in 1877. It was the second most important daily paper after ‘Scânteia’ (the current Adevărul) during communism. After the 1989 Revolution, the newspaper was relaunched as a free publication, being taken over by Petre Mihai Bacanu and Anton Uncu, just released from prison, as political dissidents. Petre Mihai Bacanu was the manager until December 2004.

During the following years, the paper was taken over by Medien Holding 50 % controlled by Essen WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung). After WAZ withdrew in the summer of 2010 from all Eastern European countries, Medien Holding has been completely taken over by Dan Adamescu, a controversial local businessman.