A situation that has not been experienced in a hundred and a half years is occurring, that the Hungarian community of the entire Partium-Bánság region is left without a Hungarian-language printed daily newspaper.
Two dailies with a significant tradition of Hungarian journalism in Romania, founded just 35 years ago in their current form, the Bihari Napló in Nagyvárad and the Nyugati Jelen, published in Arad but distributed in several counties, will cease publication as daily newspapers, the Romanian Association of Hungarian Journalists (MÚRE) announced on Tuesday.
With this change that occurred independently of each other, but for similar reasons, a situation that has not been experienced for a hundred and a half years is emerging, that the Hungarian community of the entire Partium-Bánság region will be left without a printed daily newspaper in Hungarian, the association highlighted.
The board of directors of MÚRE expressed its solidarity with the colleagues and association members working at the relevant newspapers, expressing the hope that they will be able to keep their jobs even in the changed situation, either with the online versions of the daily newspapers or with the now-launched weeklies.
According to the association, the termination of the printed edition of the newspapers is a sensitive loss for those readers who are primarily elderly, rural, often scattered, or even dispersed in big cities, for whom these daily newspapers were the only living connection with written Hungarian-language culture, and these newspapers were the most important source of information in their native language sources.
"We consider it regrettable that the unfavorable change in the situation of dailies - not only in Bánság and Partium - has increasingly been contributed to by the insufficient functioning of the state, partly in the form of tax measures affecting printed newspapers - such as the impossibility of employing part-time employees, thereby destroying distribution networks - , and also by the fact that the Romanian Post carries out work of insufficient quality with continuously increasing tariffs. As a state-owned company, Posta should provide public services, but on the other hand, it positions itself as a profit-oriented private company," reads MÚRE's resolution.
The association pointed out that newspapers like these, which are now being discontinued, also have a documenting role, as their materials can be found and retrieved in public collections even after many years, in contrast to online media, whose content is ephemeral, even in the case of major newspapers, see recently from the online space missing Transindex archive.
MÚRE has indicated: in the new year, it would like to continue the dialogue with political actors that began in the spring of 2024 about the future and form of the Hungarian press in Romania, as well as what can be done to keep the Hungarian dailies that are still published today, as well as the readers of the region, which will be without a daily newspaper from January 1 for the sake of
"A month ago, we experienced the danger when social media sites that are sources of deception and fake news influence citizens instead of edited content and traditional media products. We are convinced that strengthening the press, including publications in Hungarian, is of strategic importance for the country"
- concludes the resolution of the MÚRE board of directors.
Cover image: Illustration / Photo: Pixabay
