Origins of the Fait Divers in the Romanian Press

The faits divers are events assimilated to the unpredictable, the extraordinary, or the violation of one or several norms, which rapidly become subjects of discussion and sources for rumour. Their being included into newspapers has brought major changes in journalism practices – the passage from office journalism, dominated by opinions, to field journalism, which presupposes the contact with social reality, the community, political or administrative institutions, etc. In other words, the passage to information journalism. On the other hand, the fait divers, together with serial novels and illustrations, has made journalism more attractive, has accelerated public debates, and, last but not least, has had, though indirectly, a considerable impact on popular literacy. Although the fait divers has been blamed at all times for bringing violence in front of the people, which has led to the accusation that the press has become a school of crime, it has still accelerated the professionalization of journalism. This article presents a historical overview of the appearance and evolution of the fait divers in the press, especially in the Trompetta Carpaţilor, as representative of the titles of that pioneering period, but also in other newspapers. Romanian journalism owes much to French journalism, which served in the first years as a model and a source of information. There is much evidence to this, the most obvious being the great amount of fait divers from France in the pages of Romanian journals and newspapers. The cyclical nature of journalism practice is also interesting from this perspective – after the fall of the communist regime in Romania (1989), expressive journalism with a strong political bias came back in force and acted as a form of symbolic revenge (purifying anti-communism), but exhausted its resources in a short time, giving way again to information journalism, to which the fait divers also pertains.

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