"In Order to Be Specific With the Public"

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB

IN ORDER TO BE SPECIFIC WITH THE PUBLIC On 24 August 2006 Yana Buhrer Tavanier and Alexey Lazarov, journalists of the Bulgarian weekly newspaper Kapital, in a letter addressed to the Commission on Ethics in the Press, the Bulgarian Media Coalition (BMC), the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), and other nongovernmental organizations urged the Ethics Commission to hand down a decision regarding the “mass violation of Paragraph 2.5.2 of the Bulgarian Media Code of Ethics, which states the following: “We shall not specify the racial, religious, or ethnic identity, nor the sexual orientation, mental or physical condition of a person, if these facts have no material significance for the meaning of the imparted information.” Attached to this request letter was a list of articles from various newspapers, in which the ethnic identity of people is not only mentioned, but even emphasized, as it is reported that they have committed crimes because they are, of course, Roma. Ten days later, three journalists from the same newspaper, Ms. Tavanier, Borislav Kandov and Rossen Bossev, again turned to the Commission, this time on account of the rising number of violations by other signatories to the Code of Ethics: publication of articles naming people as criminals, before any court verdict (Paragraph 2.6.1) and lack of compassion and restraint in reporting about the victims of crimes (Paragraph 2.3.3).

On 11 September, the BMC, the BHC, the Association for European Integration and Human Rights, and the Center for Media Development addressed a message to the Ethics Commission, in which they expressed solidarity with the concern of the Kapital journalists and called upon the Commission “to pay serious attention to their warnings.”

This prompted the Obektiv magazine to discuss one of its traditional subjects once again - that of the protection of human rights via the media, and especially of the unacceptability of making negative inferences at the expense of ethnic and other minorities by indicating the ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation of suspects. Most publishers and authors support the requirements in the Code of Ethics with their words, but do not adhere to them with their deeds. For this reason, we invited Aleksey Lazarov, one of the authors of the two appeals to the Ethics Commission, to participate. There are very few people who would openly defend the idea that emphasizing ethnicity or religion when reporting about offenders is useful, and even appropriate. Perhaps the most vocal representative of those few is Iliya Iliev, an editorialist for the newspaper Monitor, a periodical that has not signed the Code. We invited Svetlana Djamdjieva, Deputy Editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Trud and a member of the Commission on Ethics in the Press, to serve as a mediator. She accepted our invitation and agreed to participate, but did not show up for the discussion. Thus, this edition of Club Obektiv, instead of having our usual format of three participants and a host, is presented with only two participants in the discussion and a host.

We have published the dialogue between Aleksey Lazarov and Iliya Iliev with minor cuts and minimal editorial intervention. We have tried to preserve the style and language of the participants intact.

19 OBEKTIV

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB vidual, even though that is obviously not the case.

When is it justifiable to disclose someone’s ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation?

Aleksey Lazarov

Iliya Iliev

Is it or is it not proper to mention the ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation of the perpetrators of crimes, when reporting about them?

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: Because of prejudice, members of the public often think that if someone is from a given ethnic group, they automatically do bad things. I’ll give a rather unusual example: I know a woman who is married to a Dutch man. He said that one of the most difficult things about his marriage was convincing his friends that his wife was not a prostitute or a pickpocket. That’s because the Dutch media also violate the principle of not mentioning ethnicity or religion. They reduce Bulgarians to the least common denominator of prostitutes and pickpockets. That’s how things are here, too. Only very rarely are crimes connected with the ethnicity of the perpetrators. In general, ethnicity has nothing to do with a person’s actions, and it is even harmful to publish what it is, because when we emphasize a person’s ethnicity, we inadvertently imply that it is to blame, rather than the indi-

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: Sometimes it is justifiable. For example, the Roma are a group with specific problems.

When writing about those issues, we have to mention their ethnicity. But in most cases it is not significant. Lack of education and low income are far more important.

ILIYA ILIEV: The question was phrased as, “Why is it that ethnic identity should not be mentioned?” The author of the question has imposed his own attitude towards the issue. It would be more appropriate to ask, “Should it,” “Can it,” etc. Mr. Lazarov twice used the phrase that it is not good, that it shouldn’t be done, etc. Thus, he is applying the categories of “good vs. evil.” The matter thus comes down to a very serious problem, that of deontology. “Deon” means law, and “logos” means science.

Bentham introduced this term In 1834,1 when he was writing his studies of morals in science. Morals for a social purpose first came to exist in the practice of medicine.

My first education was in medicine; I swore the Hippocratic oath. I know what the requirements of that guild are. I will emphasize here that this has to do with the principle, “is the thing being done good, or bad.” Deontology is the science of appropriate behavior.

I have read the letters written by Mr. Lazarov and the lady. Both texts are dripping with moral/ethical pathos.

Medicine is one of the most ancient professions. In it, appropriate behavior is envisioned in three dimensions: the “doctor-patient” relationship, the “doctor-doctor” relationship, and finally, the “doctor-patient’s family” relationship. Everything revolves around doing no harm with a given action; for example, whether or not to tell a patient that he is terminally ill.Where there is a code of ethics, there is a condition: there must be an actually existing guild, a community with generally acknowledged professional duties. I have sworn oaths in writing three times.

The second one was when I became a military physician.

That also has its own requirements, which have the value of a code. The third was with regard to the Code of the State Security Service. There are ethics there, too. I have prepared special lectures on the obligations of officers in those services with regard to the apparatus, the people they process [sic] and with regard to the state whose orders they carry out. The problem is, can the services act outside the confines of the law? Now the USA has committed numerous violations with regard to the work of the British, Israeli, and Russian intelligence services. Lately there have been many examples of violations of the law made in the name of different causes.

Is there a journalistic guild? That is a key question, in The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham died in 1832. He had been one of deontology’s sharpest critics. The Greek word “deon” means “duty”.

1

OBEKTIV 20

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB order for us to move on. Who is a journalist? A third of all journalists are just performing “copy-paste.” There is no subjective creativity among them. Journalists of the ilk of A. Vuleva say things like: “That woman’s bra strap is dirty.”

Is that journalism? Or what about the ones in pornographic magazines?! They write all kinds of gossip and slander, for which they are constantly being sued. Are those people our colleagues?! Am I a fellow journalist, since I have published three journalistic books, I’ve been “in the field” for 16 years, and I have written over 1,500 articles, or are they?! A large number of journalists do not accept me as their colleague, since I used to work for the State Security Services. So criteria have been introduced in order to throw people out of the game, so that they wouldn’t fit in. That is why I claim that journalism still doesn’t constitute that somewhat closed sort of professional class that has common professional guidelines. But just because there aren’t any, doesn’t mean that none should be created. In that sense, your initiative is commendable. You are approaching the subject from a particular angle, no matter whether it is the most important one; still, it is important. The most meaningful thing here is to develop some guidelines. To take all those little words that all have the root “prav” in Bulgarian: law, fairness, workmanship. Fairness cannot exist when we say that Bulgarians are pickpockets, because it is the gypsies who are pickpockets in this country. In my opinion, it is justifiable to say here that they are gypsies. And not just Bulgarians are prostitutes. There are prostitutes from all over Europe. Their services are mostly consumed in the West; demand leads to supply.

With regard to [the Roma neighborhood] “Stolipinovo,” I wrote more than 12 articles on the subject of “gypsies.”

I went there especially to study their life. I made films, which didn’t come out because Kevorkyan [of the Bulgarian National TV] wouldn’t release them. They say “we are Turks” and they line up to collect aid for gypsies. And why is social welfare aid given to the gypsies? And why is the Dutch lady2 crying about the poor gypsies? She should be crying for all the poor in Bulgaria. So one differentiation is acceptable, and the other differentiation is unacceptable. There are eight gypsy communities in Bulgaria, as described in the literature, and most of them are feuding with each other. And they are the object of protection by human rights organizations?! We have to counteract this protection, which is harmful to Bulgaria.

Once again, it boils down to the principle of “good vs. evil.” If you attack someone and you call him a “faggot,” then you have to be sued. But if someone is proud to be a homosexual, then is that an offensive word? The word “chifut” [equivalent to “kike”] is in widespread use in this country. It comes from the name of two prime ministers of Israel. One of them was Yehudi Menuhin,3 a person of whom all of the Bulgarian people are proud. “Yehudi” and “chifut” are one and the same thing; that’s what reference books say. So why should we see something offensive in that? “Yehudi” means “glory to Jehovah.”

2

Mr. Iliev was referring to the Dutch Euro-MP, Ms. Els de Groen.

21 OBEKTIV

All our actions take place at a given time, in a given place. But in some instances they are okay, and in others, they are not. One shouldn’t deliberately offend. But the truth must be told. The most important duty we have in our actions as journalists is to serve the truth and to tell it like it is.

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: That goes without saying, but our requirements do not exclude that. You can tell the truth, without mentioning people’s ethnicity. That is even more fair. If two gypsies have stolen something, their ethnic identity has nothing to do with it. Two ethnic Bulgarians might have stolen something on the same day, but when they are written about their ethnicity isn’t mentioned, because it is irrelevant. A while back, the copper plate was stolen from the Shipka monument. If that had been done by gypsies, it could have led to ethnic tension. At the time, the police were obliged to say that those arrested were Bulgarians. In that instance, it was somewhat justifiable, because of the reverse negative attitude.

From the standpoint of fairness to our public, it is better that the issue of ethnic origin remains aside.

OBEKTIV: Obviously there are two ways to look at this subject. One claims that as a rule, crimes depend on individual personal traits, and not on ethnicity or faith, and therefore it is risky and dangerous to infer any racial or religious generalizations. The other says that in most cases ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation determine the commission of a crime and in order to be fair to the public, we must emphasize those identities.

ILIYA ILIEV: Why and when does that have to be mentioned? Yet again a group of gypsies attacks the police who have come to disperse them. How can you not report that the incident took place in the gypsy neighborhood?! That has to be reported, because we Bulgarians don’t do that sort of thing, while it is a massive phenomenon among the gypsies. Their behavior is profoundly insubordinate to the law.

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: The proportion of Roma convicted of crimes is much higher than that of ethnic Bulgarians.

The number of crimes in Bulgaria that are committed by Roma is, for example, about 10%, but approximately 60% of those in jail are Roma. The difference is striking. I don’t have any precise data, since the Ministry of Justice considers it discriminatory to publish data on the ethnicity of prisoners. But maybe the Roma are punished far more often, because of the very nature of the crimes that they commit.

ILIYA ILIEV: I have other data, that many Roma are released from criminal liability due to their supposedly being poor. There have been such court rulings. Strange, but true.

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: You are right to say that journalists here are not organized, unlike the publishers. I feel that by raising topics such as that of the Roma for discussion, we can begin to formulate clear guidelines, in order to really 3 The famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin had never been a prime minister of Israel. The name “Yehudi” means Jew in Hebrew.

OBEKTIV DISCUSSION CLUB help that happen sooner.

I think that the Code of Ethics is quite general and superficial. That is not to reproach its authors, because it is, after all, a constructive step. In order to unite as many media outlets as possible around it, it was written in the most general terms possible. We, at Kapital weekly, have our own code, which is similar to the publishers’ one, but is much more specific and strict. Still, it’s a good thing that there is a Code of Ethics, around which much of the media have united and that a mechanism has been created for the standardization of ethical criteria. But is it being complied with? Will the Commission that is supposed to monitor adherence to it, process complaints, and impose penalties, succeed in doing so? We don’t know. It is completely new. We hope that through our case we can figure out whether it is capable of accomplishing anything worthwhile.

ILIYA ILIEV: The question once again boils down to the principle of “good vs. evil.” For example, Kapital published an article about me, and the information in it was about 60% false. Is that in accordance with the Code?! They made me out to be an apparatchik. They didn’t adhere to the Code of Ethics. Journalists are not a guild, they are not a community. They are a totally random collection of people, some of whom fancy that they are journalists.

But “journalist” must still be defined as a profession, and those who practice it as a guild. In journalism there are far more philologists who manage to achieve something than there are graduates of “Journalism,” who refer to this degree course as “PEC”4 .There is a great danger that the associations that tend to sign up to such causes might turn into some sort of crowd waging an investigative persecution campaign. One of those is already going on, led by the prominent journalist Lozanov. I’ve received letters whose contents say: “Do you admit to having worked for the State Security forces?” I said so a long time ago, but is that really the important thing now?! And what comes out of it - Bulgarian officers are slandered, while Bulgarian gypsies have to be handled with kid gloves, so as not to harm them in some way?! Phenomenal absurdities have been written about the security services and the people in them, but that’s okay, even though they are written by people who don’t know or understand a thing about the subject. And if you open the secret files, you still won’t understand anything, because the whole thing is set up so as not to be understandable. And if the State Security forces had tampered with the files, not a single trace of it would be found! One fine day, all journalists who allow things to be called what they are could get ostracized on the basis of some sort of moral/ethical categories. Today moral/ethical means one thing, and tomorrow another. Pope Benedict XVI recently said about some attacks in Poland: “Don’t even try, because you will go wrong, if you judge people of previous times by the PEC is the abbreviation for Professional Education Center, a partial form of higher education, which existed up until 1989. It is used to denote a poor-quality, inferior education.

4

standards of today.”

I stand behind the position that the times require that a thing be said or not be said. The fundamental rule of medicine is, “Do no harm!” If in calling someone a “homosexual,” a “gypsy,” etc. you are trying to harm him, that is not right, it is a bad thing. However, if this is beneficial, than it’s good. Discussing what is good and what is bad is useful. If I make a mistake at some point, it is good to tell me so, but not to throw stones or require a court conviction - no way! For example, if you say “nigger” in America, that is offensive, but if you say “a black man,” that is not offensive. But in Latin, “niger” means “black.”

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: But if certain people feel offended by the use of such words, then, that is reason enough not to use them.

ILIYA ILIEV: And if some people find it offensive for gypsies to be called Bulgarians, then, where does that leave us?! We provide an opposing viewpoint to the BHC and all the other human rights organizations.

ALEKSEY LAZAROV: You could form a group that says, “We find it discriminatory to be called “cops.” Please call us “former employees of the State Security forces.”

ILIYA ILIEV: But I don’t find that offensive. In fact, I’m quite proud of it. That is also a professional guild. I feel myself to be a person who defends their interests in the media. I have never said a bad word about a doctor, who has not committed a crime. Neither have I said a bad word about an officer, nor about a security services employee. That is required by the guild. But I have written about journalists because they lie brazenly, they make up absurd fantasies and they ascribe all sorts of heroic feats to themselves.

So both of you agree that there is not much cohesion among journalists, and therefore self-regulation is in bad shape ALEKSEY LAZAROV: I think that the level of Bulgarian journalism has fallen quite drastically in recent years. But poor education is not the only reason for that, because the American University in Bulgaria, for example, is quite good. We’ve had interns from this University at Kapital, and we’ve been very satisfied with them. However, another issue is that a large part of these people then go abroad or abandon journalism as a profession. That is why I hope that the Code of Ethics will reverse that direction. It must be made clear that this isn’t just a profession for a day, you can’t just come, publish five or six falsehoods, and then go off and do something else. It is work that carries a great responsibility, upon which the lives of many people depend, because if you write something offensive, untrue, or negative, you could misinform tens of thousands of people, but you could also ruin someone’s life.

I hope that self-regulation gradually improves, via the Code of Ethics. Even though it comes from the Publishers’ Union, I find it entirely acceptable, although I would like it to be even stricter and more specific.

OBEKTIV 22

To: Commission on Ethics in the Press CC: Bulgarian Media Coalition, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Association for European Integration and Human Rights, Center for Media Development 24 August 2006 Dear Colleagues, Several incidents over the past few weeks make us wish to draw your attention to what is, in our opinion, a mass violation of paragraph 2.5.2 of the Code of Ethics in the Bulgarian Media. Along with this notice, you will receive a list of publications in which the ethnic identity and/or sexual orientation of the persons written about is specified, despite the fact that this information has little material significance to the substance of the information in the articles. This is by no means an exhaustive count of all such texts appearing in periodicals that are signatories to the Code; the articles we are sending you are merely illustrative of a trend that is becoming more and more prevalent. We find this to be a disturbing tendency.This approach to the media coverage of Roma problems is an obstacle to their resolution, and makes them even more intractable. Any article that implies that “the gypsies are stealing/ fighting/killing again” not only creates an atmosphere of ethnic tension, but obscures the real reasons for the problems associated with crime and the Roma minority. When the true cause of a problem cannot be seen, it is much more difficult to solve. In our view, this is dangerous.

The requirement in the Code of Ethics is not just a meaningless or over-enthusiastic wish on the part of human rights advocates. People’s ethnic (as well as racial or religious) identity has nothing to do with their actions. It would be significant, in the informational sense, only in very rare cases; for example, when covering clashes of ethnic nature, or in an in-depth analysis of the issues faced by a particular group.

The text of the Code’s paragraph 2.5.2 does not restrict us from writing about Roma problems, it simply shows us how to do so in the fairest way possible not only to the Roma, but to all our readers.

We would like to bring this disturbing tendency to your attention, in the hope that the esteemed Commission on Ethics in the Press will take action, and issue a recommendation on this matter. We feel that this is in the public interest, and falls entirely within the scope of Article 7, Paragraph 4 of the Commission’s operational guidelines. We are writing to you because we feel sure that we are not the only ones cognizant of the responsibility we bear as journalists. We believe that this conviction of ours will find mutual understanding.

Should you need any further information, or if you wish to meet with us, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yana Buhrer Tavanier, Aleksey Lazarov

23 OBEKTIV