When the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) became directly applicable across the European Union in August 2025, it marked the EU’s most ambitious attempt to confront media capture through binding law. For the first time, the independence of media regulators, the governance of public service media, transparency in state advertising, and protections for media pluralism…
Romania’s latest institutional crisis did not originate in parliament or the courts, but in investigative journalism, and, crucially, in an unexpected editorial decision by the country’s public broadcaster. The scandal surrounding Romania’s justice system was triggered by Recorder, an independent investigative outlet, whose documentary Justiție Capturată (“Captured Justice”) detailed alleged patterns of obstruction, internal protection networks, and accountability…
One night in late 2024, a local reporter filed a modest feature about a town festival coming back after years of dormancy. He went home believing his draft would be edited in the morning. By sunrise, the story was live—tighter ledes, cleaner quotes, a few context paragraphs he didn’t write. The CMS, it turned out,…