Romanian President: I’m watching Discovery Channel

Traian Basescu, Romania’s president, said that, when he is watching TV, he mostly likes to watch Discovery Channel or other channels such as Animal Planet, the Romanian press writes.

The Romanian chief of state, in an open war with some of the Romanian media moguls, also added that, for a few months already, he cut subscriptions at press publications, in order not to be influenced by the atmosphere created by Romanian media trusts.

He explained that the Presidency press bureau is preparing him, every morning, a press monitoring report in which are indicated the articles that make necessary a reaction from the president.

Recently, in an intervention on the Romanian Public Radio, Basescu accused the media of disseminating a major lie, respectively that Romania is in a disperate situation. He also added that his intervention in Parliament was also linked to the fact that “80% of the Romanian mass-media is sending one single message to the Romanians: we are in a disperate situations, we have no solutions, politicians have no clue what to do”, which, in his opinion, is a major lie.

Basescu also said, in a TV interview at B1 TV, that he doesn’t consider as being moral a tax to benefit public TV and radio, appreciating the state Radio and TV should adjust to the day-to-day life and live from advertising and restructurate if they don’t make it that way.

He added that those two public institutions, as long as they receive subventions from the state budget, should not perceive any extra tax. Basescu also believes that, if State Radio and TV can’t manage to attract advertising for their activities, they should lay off some of the staff, considering the state TV has 3,600 employees and the Radio – 2,800 employees.