A danger to the public...

A danger to the public...

The image of D. Diaconescu in handcuffs could only mean, as per our legal system, that the "Journalist of the People" represents a danger to the public. A herd of lawyers is going to jump up and prove the opposite. Mr. Diaconescu is being accused of blackmail, not of hitting someone over the head. Blackmail, ladies and gentlemen, is an intellectual operation; it is conducted discretely, by phone or over coffee, and public order isn't affected in the least bit. We're asking for his immediate release. Let's be civil. What is also interesting is how DD's distinguished journalist colleagues will react, you know, those that have stood beside him in shows on his OTV garbage dump of a TV station and admirably declared him an "intellectual tabloid author". Or what the reactions will be from the "progressist" politicians and the "western" businessmen that presented their view of the world on his horrific TV station. The anti-Băsescu vuvuzelas have a problem with all this: why would Băsescu hurt his campaign buddy with whom he was on a first name basis? and their resolution is either "Băsescu's sacrificing him for show, he wants people to forget about the salary and pension cuts" or, abruptly, "They just couldn't agree on a price". The pro-Băsescu vuvuzelas will use the opportunity to state that "the National Anticorruption Directorate operates as a politically independent institution".

As far as I'm concerned, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times: D. Diaconescu's work has no relation whatsoever with journalism. This individual hasn't represented a danger to the population since the other day, when I saw him in cuffs, and not because he blackmailed the mayor of I don't know what commune. He earned his fame by defecating, evening after evening, not only on the basic rules of journalism, but on those of human cohabitation. They say he's guilty of blackmail. But what about when OTV was presenting case file fragments brought in straight from the drawers of prosecutors, what about when OTV conducted "crime scene reconstructions", when the TV screen and their phone lines would get filled up with "witnesses" to try, condemn and execute a person on live TV, where was the National Anticorruption Directorate back then to accuse D. Diaconescu of crimes? When all the stages of human degradation, including physical and mental handicaps, were used without a forethought just to get another fine from the National Audiovisual Council of Romania to get them ahead, to score another rating point, another helicopter and another Rolls Royce for "Mr. Dan", what did the state and Romanian society do against the monstrosities of OTV then? Was a blackmail complaint by mayor Moţ necessary for the state bodies to finally notice the villas, apartment buildings, helicopters, yachts, and super-limos amassed by a "journalist" that runs an "apartment-sized TV station"?

I previously said about Costiniu, Căşuneanu and Locic, which were arrested in the Voicu case, that them being paraded in front of TV stations with cuffs on for a day or two would remain their only punishment. For D. Diaconescu that isn't even going to be punishment. We're seeing yet another episode of his show, which has moved from an apartment to the street. His ratings, which had dropped a lot lately, are going to up. One could almost say that if this wasn't actually happening, the scenes "news stations" keep showing would have had to be directed by D. Diaconescu.
Because the competition for ratings is as bad in the press as it is in politics. It would be a final illusion for the journalist species - cause I can't really call it a guild anymore - to consider D. Diaconescu something out of the ordinary, a media wart, a rare malformation. An illusion that can be broken up by percentages, with a very simple and sinister question: what's the percentage of Romanian TV stations that hasn't been "OTVed" already?

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