Gloucester Citizen features editor Victoria Temple made front-page news when she visited the offices of a new daily paper in Romania.
Temple was in the former Eastern bloc country on a month-long study visit organised by the Rotary Foundation and decided to drop in to the offices of five-month-old newspaper Ulpia Journal in the town of Alba.
She was surprised the next day to find that her informal chat with the reporters had made front-page news under the headline “Alba Iulia through the eyes of a British Journalist”.
She said: “It was in the middle of the local elections and there were political stories on the front page every day. It was polling day so I think they were looking for a non-political story to put on the front.
“I just went along for a chat with their journalists to find out about what they were doing. They didn’t take notes so the article was all done from memory.
They quoted me saying the only thing I knew about Romania before I went there was Dracula and Ceausescu.”
She added: “Regional journalism has undergone a real boom in Romania since the revolution in 1989. In the UK we have seen a consolidation of the regional press, but in Romania there is a proliferation of new titles as people realise just how powerful the media can be in a new democracy.”
By Dominic Ponsford
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog