“The dark alter ego of journalism, propaganda, is trying to gain ground again,” Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu told this week’s Media2020 Conference in Bucharest.

He was speaking of extremist propaganda being used by terrorists, and urged credible media to work hard to tell the truth, which will give audiences the information they need to counter extremism “in the present geopolitical context, especially in our close neighbourhood.”

“Information is power,” he said, describing the way information has changed in the age of internet and social media. “Those who get the news first have the power.. but the true challenge is to get information quickly from reliable sources.”

He expressed the Romanian government’s support for its national broadcasters as an important credible source of information, and urged them to embrace the social media age to deliver their information on many platforms in a timely way.

Under the oppressive former communist regime of last century, Romania’s broadcasters were state propoganda broadcasters, but in the country’s present democracy they are credible national broadcasters answerable to the people through the parliament, not to the government of the day.