Professional Bio
I am Corina Dragotescu, a Romanian journalist. I was a full time journalist until I moved in US in 2013. Now, I still have a part time collaboration with Romania TV as a political analyst and I travel a few months every year in Romania. My career began in 1990, as a journalist for a newspaper and after the Iron Curtain fell I was part of the great changes in Eastern Europe. I tried to understand all the social - political changes which were necessary for a new regime. I started as Parliamentary reporter and I had a great chance to see the constitutional process, for the new Romanian Constitution. I witnessed the institutional construction of the rule of law and I got expertise in Parliamentary issues.
After 17 years, in 2007, I changed my career and I started to work in television. Basically it was a new career, with new rules which implied more concision and more adaptability. That was the time when I understood that one minute in television can express much more than 12 pages in a newspaper, and I watched how new media changed the rule in politics over the World. It was not only about political changes during these years, media also evolved. It was a road from working for public to working with public, all over the World, as Washington Post noticed one year ago.
I always say about me that I was born during the communism time; I grew up under the Ceausescu dictatorship; I was in my early 20’s part of the Romanian Revolution; I went through the transition, from a dictatorial regime to a democratic one, with all the East European countries. Finally I was lucky enough to win the US residency. I traveled a lot, in all West and East Europe, in Russia, China, Canada, Afghanistan and Jordan.
I went back to school, after 25 years, and I started the Master program at University of Arizona in International Security Studies. I enjoyed every minute of this Master in International Security. A lot of people asked me why I chose it, but now with all these tragic events and changes around the World’ it is easy for me to explain to them. I learned a lot, a lot much than I expected, even if it was very difficult for me, because English isn’t my native language and sometimes I wrote in Romanian first and I translated after. Basically I worked twice on the same paper, or discussion more than most of my colleagues.
Anyway, I don’t know what the future will bring me, but I hope that one day I will work for UN, or in Washington DC as a Consultant for European issues, with a focus in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, or on Turkey.
It is hard to write about me, so I invite you to watch a video about my career which was really a gift from my Romanian colleagues, when I left Romania.