Why is “State of the Nation” returning to TVR. Dragoș Pătraru: “The idea of public television is a kind of national team”
Journalist Dragoș Pătraru explained, in an interview with Studio Paginademedia.ro, why the “State of the Nation” program is returning to TVR, saying that he refused other television stations and that his team proposed the free broadcast of an edition of the program.
“The idea of public television, for me, is a kind of national team. We refused other televisions. We wanted to give them a completely free edition at TVR”, said Pătraru.
He explained that the initiative initially started from a statement made during a live broadcast, after which he sent a letter to TVR in which he proposed several formats.
“Initially, I didn't send a letter. I said live that I would like to broadcast on TVR. After I saw the work with Recorder (TVR broadcasted a recent journalistic product for free: the Recorder film “Captured Justice”, no), I also sent a letter to TVR in which we expressed our desire to broadcast three shows: the Voice of the Nation podcast, an idea that was refused. We also proposed the State of Health, where we don't have that many resources, and we also proposed the State of the Nation, which would be an edition broadcast on Thursdays, once a week. They only accepted the idea of the State of the Nation,” said the journalist.
According to the information published by Pagina de Media, the Steering Committee of TVR approved “the start of negotiations between SRTv and the State of the Nation Association, with a view to concluding a contract”.
Patraru explained that independent journalistic projects sometimes reach a limited audience, although they address important topics.
“On the Internet, we found that it is just that. A community of 13 thousand people who contribute. There are some ideas that are very slanderous, but they do not reach a very wide audience. Our mission is to help people make more informed decisions. We aim to produce news from the perspective of people, not from the perspective of corporations. We look at the problem from the perspective of people,” he said.
Dragoș Pătraru also stated that the press should return to a model in which the public directly supports the journalistic content.
“I firmly believe that we must return to the situation where people paid for press content. Informing the public must be a relationship between the editorial office and the public, without corporations, without politics,” said the journalist.
Dragoș Pătraru's career began in the print media, in Ploiești, and was later consolidated in television. The 49-year-old journalist has produced shows on Prahova TV, Romania TV, TVR, Prima TV and Digi24.
Dragoș Pătraru's separation from TVR took place in 2018, when Doina Gradea was the president-general director, the PSD proposal, then voted by the Parliament. Pătraru then accused the removal of the show for political reasons. The TVR management at the time denied it.
