This is how Recorder's income looks over the last years: in 2020, 400,000 euros, in 2021, 850,000 euros, in 2022, 1,105,602 euros, in 2023, 1,325,000 euros, in 2024, 2,380,826 euros, and in 2025, 3,000,000 euros.
Of the “several hundred who demonstrated from all over the country”, as Realitatea Plus or Romania TV say, the first two thousand were in Bucharest. Of “the Recorder's few donors,” several hundred a day are coming in right now.
In 6 years, Recorder increased its revenue 8 times. The amounts are those from the Recorder Community Association's public statements.
Recorder publishes pdf with the balance sheet
Every year, the chief editors Cristian Delcea and Mihai Voinea publish a financial report. Journalists accompany it with a pdf file of the balance sheet, as the document is filed with the state.
The amount of 3 million euros for 2025 is not from the balance sheet, because the balance sheet for the current year is submitted next year. She appeared in a presentation the Recorder made at a media seminar in early December. It is reasonable to assume that revenues have increased in the meantime, after the Recorder documentary made by Andreea Pocotilă and Mihai Voinea.
Even the documentary and the reactions from society, justice and politics propelled the question: well, there are 2.4 million, but from where?
The answer is all in the documents.
More than 75% come from individuals
Last year, the redirection of 3.5% of the income of individuals and donations from individuals totaled 1.8 million euros, out of a total of 2.4 million euros. That's 75% of the revenue. Something is added from people who buy T-shirts, souvenirs. Only the rest is from companies or advertising on YouTube.
So over three-quarters of Recorder's revenue comes from individuals. How many are these people? On the screens of Realitatea Plus and RTV, the images of some recent leaders from around the Romanian state are pasted and it is stated that they are the donors.
How many Romanians donated to Recorder
In reality, over 30,000 Romanians donated to Recorder in 2025, according to HotNews information. It's easy to make a calculation key. If they probably collected 1.5 million euros in 2025 from income redirection, this means that 25,000 individuals contributed to this budget chapter alone.
Does anyone imagine that there is a “button” that can be pressed so that tens of thousands of Romanians donate to Recorder, tens of thousands to Donate Life and hundreds of thousands to various projects? Or is there a panic button, in an unlit basement, that activates Romanians to go out into the streets? Yes, there are people who believe this.
Ion Cristoiu expressed his conviction the other day that “He acted on the button. Don't tell me that Romanians took to the streets moved by a documentary.”
What Cristoiu was saying 30 years ago
On July 22, 1995, Ion Cristoiu was invited by Iosif Sava to the “Musical Evening” on TVR. Cristoiu entered the studio as director of “Evenimentului zilei”, during the heyday of the newspaper.
The show appears transcribed in one of Sava's dialogue books. “My job is to be dissatisfied with the state of things,” said Cristoiu at one point. What is today's Recorder documentary, other than the testimony of a great dissatisfaction, illustrated including the voices of magistrates, from the system?
Interviewed by Iosif Sava, Ion Cristoiu added that few things bother him, as he is annoyed by the “Romanian style” in which a man is always attributed to one or the other: “Nobody imagines that a man can write what comes to his mind!”.
“A man is not a flute to be played”, exclaimed Ion Cristoiu three decades ago. “Well, this makes me crazy.” Today, when thousands protest and tens of thousands donate to the Recorder, are they flutes?
“Captured Justice” has no dissenting opinions
For years, I've been skeptical about Recorder's ability to change the logic of the market when it comes to donations. They were right, not me. Thanks to donations, they have increased their ability to create quality content.
Is the documentary “Captured Justice” round like an unassailable sphere? Not. But people do not expect perfection from journalists, but courage and compliance with the rules of the profession. Sure, society can change its mind and demand our impeccability, but then the press will refrain from entering into risky cases, because of the possible lawsuits.
According to today's law, in the democratic world, citizens prefer a press that can make mistakes, if it does so in good faith, because the alternative is a press that is scared of mistakes like its own shadow.
The Film Recorder doesn't really have any dissenting opinions. There are no arguments against those who attack Voineag, Savonea, Predoiu. The heads of the DNA and the High Court refused to dialogue. Unlike prosecutors, journalists can only get people to talk, they don't bring them to hearings. There would probably have been other possible voices. I'm not.
Voineag has disappeared, Savonea answers questions
In these days that swallowed us like a vortex, I thought if I had not entered the “Recorder cult”. Someone said that “I can stage a coup d'état, that no one notices, look, the first 10 news on any site is about the problems in the judiciary.” Yes, that's right. There are many articles on this topic on HotNews, although many other things are happening in the country and in the world.
Not all justice news runs in one direction, but it is true that the sentiment of protest is predominantly reflected. And the emotional laser of public attention is focused on Lia Savonea, the president of the High Court. Here, I think we make an error. The phenomenon is much more complex and, no matter how powerful, a single character does not encompass the system.
Marius Voineag, head of DNA, had the ability to disappear completely from the landscape. The cold light fell on the president of the High Court. And Lia Savonea, however, answered the questions, which denotes a strength confirmed by several magistrates. Opponents or loyalists, they describe her as a self-possessed person. And there is something else, probably important, a matter of destiny.
Savonea climbed with a lot of struggle
There is information in the world of justice that Savonea started simply, from the bottom, without any social pedestal, without support. That shows merit, a visible resilience, and the signal that not giving in has become second nature.
Ever since she was shooting hard at the Faculty of Law, Lia Savonea knew how to deal with the hostility around her, when needed, a current magistrate, from the 1996 class, with whom I spoke confidentially for this article, described her former colleague.
That at some point he intersected with interests and chose the formal and politically correlated power, yes, there are numerous testimonies in this sense.
Where does Recorder get the money
On Friday, Savonea did not delay and held a reorganization meeting for 2026 at the High Court, arguing with the judges. Many others would have played conservation. At a time when the air smells of gasoline, to enter the headquarters with the lighter of the contested measures, this shows, on the one hand, ego as big as China, but also the conviction that you are right. Over this conviction, consolidated in a hard-won career, it will be difficult for Lia Savonea to pass and see. To see how, however, it is unacceptable and disproportionate for a democratic society to hold so much informal power.
In a way, at the opposite pole, this is what the people protesting against them and against the corruption in the judiciary also feel. The more these citizens, demonstrators or donors, are denied their independence or even existence, the more there will be.
And when they wonder where the Recorder gets their money from, presenting their own opinions as facts, TV stations can look in the mirror. Insults garner donations and produce future investigations.
