Evenimentul Zilei

It was founded by Ion Cristoiu, Cornel Nistorescu and Mihai Cārciog and the first issue was published on 22 June 1992 .

In those early years of Romanian journalism after the fall of Communism, many of the stories in the Romanian newspapers (even the serious ones) were actually made-up. Evenimentul Zilei also had its share of bizarre stories, such as reports of "smuggling of headless cats".

However, the most famous episode was a series of articles regarding a hen who gave birth to a live chicken. The original article was published on 2 October 1993. As many readers were interested in more details, Evenimentul Zilei published several other articles on this theme, placing the event in the Moldovan Republic (in order to be harder to verify) and giving the testimony of an alleged leading Moldovan scientist. The author, Cătălin Ştefănescu, later said that he made up that article because Ion Cristoiu, the chief editor, asked every reporter to write three articles each day and he expected to go unnoticed.

The newspaper reached its peak daily circulation of 675,000 in 1993. In 1997 Chief Editor Ion Cristoiu quits and this job was taken by Cornel Nistorescu.

The newspaper was purchased along with its parent company Expres Publishing in 1998 by the German company Bertelsmann, who later, in 2003 sold it to the Swiss press trust Ringier [1]; at the time of purchase, Ringier representatives stated that there would be no direct or indirect intervention in the newspaper's editorial policy.

In September 2004 more than 50 Evenimentul Zilei journalists protested Ringier's management decisions. Similar issues were raised at the same time at rival daily Romānia Liberă, owned by Germany's Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. At both papers, journalists have complained that foreign owners are telling them to lessen the political coverage and tone down their negative reporting of the government. Their concern has been echoed by a variety of organizations including the Open Society Foundation. [1], [1] After this scandal, Evenimentul Zilei became one of the most fervent attackers of the government's corruption.

After the 2004 Romanian elections, Ringier group moved the editor-in-chief, Dan Turturică, to Bacău and began changing the editorial policy, to become a tabloid. As a response, on 23 December 2004, 80 journalists signed a protest against these decisions and organized a rally in front of the Swiss Embassy. Subsequent negotiations were unsuccessful and on 4 January 2005, 30 journalists resigned, in addition to another five that resigned several days earlier.

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