Quotes of the Day

Orphans are out, journalists are in. After years of lambasting Romania for mistreating its institutionalized children, the European Commission has a new cause: media freedom. The annual Commission report on Romania's progress toward accession, due out Oct. 6, will come down hard on the country for harassment and intimidation of journalists and interference in editorial content, says a Bucharest-based diplomat familiar with the draft. The report will note that few perpetrators of violence against journalists are being brought to justice, and that growing concentration of media ownership in the hands of political and business élites leads to self-censorship. The report apparently will not cite specific media violations. But examples are not hard to find, says Mircea Toma, director of the Bucharest-based Media Monitoring Agency. By the agency's count, at least 29 journalists have been threatened or attacked in Romania since the beginning of the year.

The government denies meddling, saying Parliament controls public television and radio, and private firms everything else. But E.U. officials say it needs to take the criticism seriously. Last December, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase was flippant about attacks. "If a simple article would be a reason for fighting," he joked, "then I should have beaten a journalist per day." The E.U. isn't laughing.

• JAN STOJASPAL
• After years of lambasting Romania for mistreating its institutionalized children, the European Commission has a new cause: media freedom