The Ratiu Forum Journalism Workshop
Date update:
28-29 March 2022
John Lloyd, Financial Times (UK)
Alison Mutler, Universul.net (Romania)
Wojciech Przybylski, Visegrad Insight (Poland)
Peter Erdelyi, 444 (Hungary)
Ovidiu Vanghele, Center for Investigative Media (Romania)
Diana Oncioiu, Dela0 (Romania)
Emilia Sercan, University of Bucharest (Romania)

PARTICIPANTS
Applicants will go through a selection process. Accommodation and meals will be covered by the organisers.
Read the personal data protection note here (Romanian)
EVENT PHOTOS
EVENT AGENDA
Monday, 28 March 2022
10:00-10:30
Welcome
John Lloyd
Nicolae Ratiu
10:30-12:30
Session one: Journalism in Central Europe
Wojciech Przybylski
John Lloyd
Péter Erdelyi
This panel will look to investigate the continued decline of (most) newspapers and (many) magazines in the print media – a phenomenon which is felt across the globe – whilst analysing the seemingly opposite successes of investigative journalism, a cause close to the heart of The Ratiu Forum’s work.
Another main element analysed here is the role of journalism and social media, its progressive work in providing access to information, whilst also opening itself up to scrutiny in its objectivity, with John Lloyd from the Financial Times focusing on the question is objectivity in journalism no longer prized? Finally, this panel will analyse the journalism industries of China and Russia, looking into its silencing and the way in which freedoms have been habitually repressed.
14:00 – 16:00
Session two: Investigative journalism
Ovidiu Vanghele
Diana Oncioiu
Emilia Sercan
16:30 – 17:30
Session three: Special Guest speaker
Professor Dennis Deletant, UCL
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
10:30 – 12:30
Session four: The nature of Romanian journalism today
Alison Mutler
Ovidiu Vanghele
Mircea Barbu
13:30 – 15:30
Session five: Authoritarianism and the media
Emilia Sercan
Peter Erdelyi
Wojciech Przybylski
16:00 – 16:30
Closing session: wrapping up
Nicolae Ratiu
John Lloyd
SPEAKERS
John Lloyd
John Lloyd co-founded The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in 2006, where he was Director of Journalism and a Senior Research Fellow. He is a Contributing editor at The Financial Times, and Chairman of the School of Civic Education (Russia). Lloyd was a freelance reporter in Belfast in the early 1970s. He was a reporter on LBC Radio, worked at London Weekend TV as a reporter on the London Programme and producer on Weekend World. At the Financial Times he has been Labour Editor,Labour and Industrial Editor, East Europe Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief; and founding editor of the FT Weekend Magazine. He has edited both Time Out and the New Statesman.
Wojciech Przybylski
Wojciech Przybylski is the editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight and chairman of Res Publica Foundation in Warsaw. Previously Wojciech has been the editor-in-chief of Eurozine – a magazine representing a network of European cultural journals, and – a Polish journal Res Publica Nowa. He has launched and leads the ‘New Europe 100’ project that is networking and bringing forward a community of successful innovators from CEE across the fields of business, research media, NGO and public administration run jointly by Res Publica, Financial Times and Google. He is a member of the advisory board of the European Forum of New Ideas. His expertise includes European and transatlantic affairs as well as policies related to innovation and culture. He has been publishing in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, Journal of Democracy, EUObserver, VoxEurop, Hospodarskenoviny, Internazzionale, Gazeta Wyborcza, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and several others. His new book ‘Understanding Central Europe’ (co-ed. with Marcin Moskalewicz) has been published in 2017 by Routledge.
Alison Mutler
Alison Mutler studied Romanian literature and language at the University of London and graduated in 1987. She first reported from Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova before communism ended, and was in Romania, working for British television station ITV during the 1989 anti-communist revolt. She moved to Romania in 1991 and joined the Associated Press which she left last year after 25 years. She has been president of the now defunct Foreign Press Association. She is now a correspondent for Romanian startup news site, universul.net. She occasionally freelances for Coda Story and Radio Free Europe among others.
Ovidiu Vanghele
Ovidiu Vanghele started his career in 2002 at MEDIAFAX Agency. During his ten years in the press agency he gradually became interested in more detailed subjects, closer to investigative journalism. He then joined the Pro TV news team. Less than a year later, he chose to leave mainstream media, founding the Center for Investigative Media, the entity he heads ever since. In the last seven years, Ovidiu published several press investigations tracing millions of euro spent pointlessly, illegally or simply stolen. His best known investigations focused on the abuses from mental health centers, the Romanian Academy monetary frauds, the National Railway Company’s contracts. Most of these also became judiciary investigations. He has spent almost the entire 2016 documenting, together with Ana Poenariu (Rise Project), the series “Toți oamenii generalului”, tracking the personal and financial development of Gabriel Oprea. In 2017, together with Vlad Stoicescu (dela0.ro), he set up a journalism platform aimed to better understand the relationship between the Churches in Romania and state institutions. Funded by its readers, the online project “Let there be light!” is, to many, an example of how journalism can survive in these tough times. He also teaches journalism at the University of Bucharest.
Mircea Barbu
Mircea Barbu is a freelance journalist, reporting as a war correspondent for several publications in Romania and abroad. In the last years, he has been reporting from Syria, Iraq, Crimea, the Gaza Strip and Ukraine about the fate of the civilians trapped in conflict areas, about migration and human rights.
Diana Oncioiu
Currently a reporter working for the alternative publication Dela0, Diana Oncioiu is also a member of the Să Fie Lumină project, initiated by Dela0.ro and the Center for Media Investigations. She has a background in broadcasting, having worked for five years for Realitatea TV and Digi24. She covers mainly social topics – domestic violence, education, social assistance, extreme poverty, social exclusion – and is the author of a series of in depth reportages covering topic like: the social reintegration of former inmates, life in the undergrounds of the Bucharest neighborhood Ferentari, human trafficking and the trialing of sexual crimes with child victims. Diana Oncioiu is the 2020 recipient of the Ion Ratiu Journalism Award.
Emilia Șercan
Emilia Șercan is an investigative journalist with 24 years of professional experience. She is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences (University of Bucharest). In national media, she worked for Curierul Naţional and Evenimentul Zilei newspapers, and also for the Realitatea-Cațavencu media trust. As of 2015, her investigations can be read on PressOne.
She has signed over 4.000 investigations, interviews and columns on various topics of public interest in Romania (Mătuşa Tamara, Afacerile din energie ale “băieţilor deştepţi”, Afacerile de după FNI ale lui SOV, Averea lui Dan Ioan Popescu, Dosarul Bancorex, Ziarişti – foşti informatori ai Securităţii, Afacerile lui Puiu Popoviciu). In the last five years she covered extensively the topic of plagiarism in doctoral theses, publishing investigations about the works of several Romanian politicians or public figures.
In 2013 she obtained her PhD in Communication Sciences with the distinction “excellent”, publishing her doctoral thesis – Cultul secretului. Mecanismele cenzurii în presa comunistă (Polirom). In 2017 she published another book – Fabrica de doctorate: Sau cum se surpă fundamentele unei nații (Humanitas).
Emilia Șercan won several scholarships, both as a teacher and as a journalist. She was thus a US State Department Fellow at Ohio University (2016), a scholarship holder at Standhal University Grenoble 3 (2012 – 2013) and at Freedom House Scholarship in the USA (2004). Over the years, he has won several professional and academic awards: Journalist of the Year – SuperScrieri Awards (2016), Freedom of Expression Award – Active Watch (2016), Ion Ratiu Journalism Award (2016 ), Professor of the Year – ANOSR (2017), “Nicolae Iorga” Award of the Romanian Society of Historical Sciences, European Network for Academic Integrity Award (2019) and the Award the Group for Social Dialogue – GDS (2020).
Peter Erdelyi
Peter Erdelyi is senior editor / director at one of Hungary’s last independent media outlets, 444.hu. His role includes audience growth, diversifying the business model and funding opportunities, and commissioning special content projects about pressing issues in Hungary. Before this, Peter was an investigative reporter covering stories related to national security, covert foreign influence, corruption, hate groups and the rule of law, with a specific focus on judicial independence.