Owlspotting

The hardest thing after a debut is a consistent follow-up. I think the second issue of Esquire Romania has met that standard and done one better. I’m not one to brag, but you’ll find that the second issue is more local, more diverse and more vividly illustrated than number one. And I’m very happy about […]

Bradut, a former teacher (now a peer and a friend), runs jurnalismonline.ro and he had me over yesterday for one of his Yahoo!Mess interviews. It ended up being a long talk — about Esquire Romania, journalism and a little about blogging. If you can read Romanian and can take a little more of my ranting, […]

Esquire, the award-winning American magazine, is launching its Romanian edition next week. The PDFs below are a sneak preview of the cover and contents page. Esquire will be a novelty on the Romanian magazine market, and the first outlet to promote long-form writing and narrative journalism. These forms are almost inexistent in Romania. They will […]

It could have been the beer. Sometimes it is the beer. Sometimes beer is just one’s cover. I don’t keep many (of my own) secrets to myself and I believe the one’s that have not surfaced are hidden because I haven’t found an understandable way to put them out there. To me, life is a […]

Early-bird that I am, I was the first to enter the screening-room of Four Eyed Monsters at Boston’s Coolidge Corner last week. Boiled down to a love-story of the MySpace and YouTube age (when is this phrase going to be considered old?), the film is a stirring portrayal of a relationship, as well as an […]

The Romanian newspaper “Cotidianul” published an article today about what it called “Journalism 2.0,” a clever play on the Web 2.0 idea. The premise of the piece is that traditional media and citizen media are about to enter into an all out turf-war. The author, Cosmin Popan, says it’s a conflict between “media with a […]

I know most of my readers wonder what I’m up to when I don’t play guide to the undercurrents of Romanian society or investigating the whereabouts of Coca-Cola C2 (what a quest my friends). Well, there are several potential answers and they do depend on the day of the week. Tuesday for example, I discussed […]

The latest issue of Dilema Veche, the Romanian magazine I write for, had the Internet and the citizens’ interaction with the medium (“Cetateni pe Internet”) as its central theme. It’s a great discussion to have in Romania, where political and social opinion currents born online are just beginning to take shape. Back in March I […]

I have a dear friend who has embarked on a fun quest to save the world. While I’m currently doing my part by watching movies until 4 AM while nursing a bottle of Romanian wine (thus making life better for countless people who don’t have to deal with me), she struggles for a better world […]

Two of my former professors at the journalism school in Bucharest, George and Bradut, have been chronicling the admission exam that is taking place this week at FJSC (1, 2). Over the years I’ve given much thought to this exam and whether it could be made more relevant. At the end of the day, the […]