CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals
Olha Kvasnystia
The mission of new media intellectuals Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. URL:
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Abstract:
The journalism of the ХХІ century is an extensive topic for researching what journalism is, what its mission is, what challenges are sent to it at present and ultimately what prospects it has in the ХХІ century.
OLHA KVASNYSTIA These questions need to be answered, though appearing to be rhetorical ones. Doubtless the article’s parameters do not let answer all the forgoing questions, but we will try to answer some of them. No one wonders that journalism in on the turn as a profession and as a phenomenon in the context of civilization transformations. This is because the world alters, and journalism alters right with it, moreover, what changes is a man. The question is, if this is for better? And finally if the nature and the mission of a man have been changed? And hence if the nature and the mission of journalism have been altered?
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graduated of journalism and english philology (Ivan Franko National University of L’viv) Currently, she is lecturer at the Ivan Franko National University of L’viv. In past she cooperated with few editorial offices. Actually she’s sending hers correspondences to Ukrainian daily newspaper “The Day”, “Ukrainian literary newspaper”, periodical review “The Letters to Friends”, Bookworm of Ukraine «Bukvojid». Of specific interestі are cultural studies, literary studies, elitology, communication studies.
CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals
Within the science of journalism there are a lot of definitions and comments on the issue “What is Journalism?”: starting with its explication as “a type of creative activities” and “reflection of the reality” and ending with assertive reduction that “journalism is news first and foremost”, that it is “balance of thoughts” and so on. These definitions are thorough only to a certain extent, though exactly this interpretation prefers to be the only right and outright one at present in consideration of ideological and commercial character of its apologists. Today journalism is defined according to the formula “(information + entertainment) multiplied by the rating”, that finally gives a distorted vision of what the world is yet without its understanding, but gives a great deal of impressions and emotions to its recipients and provides wide spaces for manipulation and financial profits to the media companies. Many journalists run counter to the dominant concepts, raising issues of the day and meticulously analyzing new trends in journalism. These are, inter alia, Giovanni Sartori, Ryszard Kapuściński, Gabriel García Márquez, Nick Davies. Among the forerunners who set the tone not only for journalism but also for the epoch, it is worth to mention the names of the classics: Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Malcolm Muggeridge, Walter Cronkite. These and others stand close to the History, the history of a little human as well as grandeur and tragedy of the nations, where they lived, whose representatives they were and what they wrote about. In their works we will not find just the assertion of the facts or all the more balance of thoughts. Their texts are bunch of thoughts and contemplations, balanced on the conscience and civil stand. Their aim was not just to inform, as it is now in journalistic circles, but also to form the worldview and the man, to look for truth and change the world. That is why while answering the question what is the main mission of journalism we will refer to the British journalist Nick Davies, author of the book Flat Earth News, who thinks that journalism aims to serve for finding out the truth (underlining is ours – O.K.), and the defining value for journalists is “honesty – the attempt to tell the truth. That is our primary purpose. All that we do – and all that is said about us – must flow from the single source of truth-telling” 1. By the way, the name of the book Flat Earth News neatly reflects the world picture, modeled by the modern world journalism, which avoids analyses and fragments the reality without verifying the facts, which creates or rather distorts human’s conception
1
Дейвіс Н. Новини Пласкої Землі. – К. : Темпора, 2011, p. 19.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals about the world around, about what is going on in it and finally about the human itself. The world becomes flat and one-dimensional, the same as a human itself (speaking apropos the terms of Herbert Marcuse). It is worthy of note that the author tried to shift one of the basic ideas of Anglo-Saxon journalism system – the idea of objectivity. This is what he says on this matter: “The great blockbuster myth of modern journalism is objectivity, the idea that a good newspaper or broadcaster simply collects and reproduces the objective truth. It is a classic Flat Earth tale, widely believed and devoid of reality. It has never happened and never will happen because it cannot happen. Reality exists objectively, but any attempt to record the truth about it always and everywhere necessarily involves selection” 2. Selection of a topic, facts, style, language, headline, photograph – this is either self-dependent selection or selection dictated by the editorial policy of a certain media company. Moreover, editorial policy defines exactly the way of presenting information: European or AngloSaxon one. The latter dominates at present, by the way. Anglo-Saxon model involves separating the facts from the assessments, comments, while in the European one the basis is commented information, which aims not only to inform truthfully, but also to clarify the essence of a phenomenon, event or fact, because you can be informed about thousands of cases, but no longer understand the nature of what is happening. How much for instance does it give for understanding the events to see videos with the line «No comment!»? Where is the guarantee, that these reportages with majestic names «Video Verite!» are not edited and detached from the context? In any case, this is the choice of the shot, the subject, etc. How much does a viewer get for understanding and comprehension of uncommented information? Viewers consciousness are bombarded with facts that do not allow them to understand more than they can see (the latter being the best case), and that is meaningless to talk about trying to understand or even experience of what is reported. Flat earth news form not only a new anthropological type of a human «Homo Videns» (according to Giovanni Sartori), but also a man who is indifferent both to the world and to himself. Journalism can explain and clarify the world, nurturing philosophy of human nature and humanity, and may kill the human base in a human, for there are a lot of examples of informational killing in modern journalism. This is for us to choose. However, going back to objectivity and dictatorship of facts, let us give some counterarguments. The former editor of the British newspaper The Sunday Times Harold Evans once said: “Facts can be sacred – but what facts? Mass media is not a neutral glass: we select, what to
2
Ibid., p. 152.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals reflect” (underlining is ours – O.K.) 3. English novelist and journalist George Orwell, British journalist James Cameron, American writer and outstanding war correspondent Martha Gellhorn – all of them disrespected the idea of objectivity. The former editor of The Sunday Times stated it clearly in the article about reporters work: “The idea of “a fact” is so simplified; this is a false idea. Facts are not sacred; at the moment a reporter starts writing an article he selects certain situations and distorts them. These “facts”, thrown to readers like clots, should be forgotten. To say, that the work of journalists is to state the facts, is the same as to say, that the architect is engaged in laying bricks – looks like the truth, but it does not reflect the matter at all” 4. Hence the journalist mission is to bring people the ESSENCE of what is going on, and for this purpose a journalist should leave his comfort zone, take off the mask of objectivity and perceive the world not only with his eyes but also with his heart. In this regard the editor of TeleKrytyka Nataliia Lihachova said, “journalism is not only reporter activities but also analytics and publicism, which cannot be created with cold heart. <...> I think in the sense of journalism as the one providing information on the position of detached observer we have some excess. Journalism must be honest, and in particular, in order not to publish its assessments for the ultimate truth, to separate facts from comments etc. But this does not mean that it is enough for a journalist to give two points of view - even if they are both false - and wash his hands. The mission of a journalist is to tell people the Essence of what is happening ...” 5. But public opinion is pressed by the standard of neutral or rather sterile journalism as the ultimate truth, which gives two points of view, and this the task of society to make conclusions. This is an easy formula of retreat and escape from social problems and responsibilities: “We do not know what is going on - decide it yourself.” According to Nick Davies “Neutrality requires the journalist to become invisible, to refrain deliberately (under threat of discipline) from expressing the judgments which are essential for journalism. Neutrality requires the packaging of conflicting aims, which is precisely the opposite of truth-telling” 6. Balance can mean only one thing: there will be no need to apologize; to seek the truth is not indispensable; admit one’s ignorance and incompetence is taboo. On the “news factory” this is one of the fundamental rules of production. If we talk about the rules 3 4 5
Ibid., p. 153. Ibid., p. 153.
Скуба В. Що «нагріє»? Шеф-редактор «Телекритики» Наталія Лигачова – про те, чому якісні меді неможливо створювати з «холодним носом» // День. – 2011. – 30 груд.
6
Дейвіс Н., op.cit. p. 153.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals of production “Flat Earth news”, we consider it appropriate to give some examples in the context of our search. Thus, according to Nick Davies, these rules mark the content of news and principles of modern journalism functioning. They call for production cheap news, including trivial ones which do not require from journalists a huge investment of time, which do not make problems as to publication and, what is the most important, do not urge to deep investigation. Authors of “news factory” are prone to choose safe facts from official sources, because it is easier to refer to press service information than to check it out oneself. Another way to pass by the truth or rather to avoid it, is tendentious coverage of dangerous, sensitive, controversial topics with filtered content, with a statement of facts without context and analysis of values, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to Nick Davies, such news are “natural selectivity of ignorance”. Moreover authors of “Flat Earth news” want not so much to maintain peace where it is war, as to maintain panic, since the more fearful news are – the higher ratings and profits will be achieved. The matter is not so much in raising income of media holdings as in the answer at what cost it is. The cost is hushing up the truth, but under the guise of objectivity. Nick Davies stated, “In a totalitarian state, media lies stand up proud and insult their readers direct to their faces. In the free society, the lies rest quietly and in comfort inside their clichés - clichés of language and of fact and of value - <…> In a totalitarian state, ideology stands up and announces itself in every sentence - ‘the glorious fatherland…the heroic soldiers…our great leader and immortal helmsman’. In a democracy, the ideology is still there in every sentence, but it lies down and hides beneath the surface. There is no need for a totalitarian regime when the censorship of commerce runs it’s blue pencil through every story” (underlining is ours – O.K.) 7. There came a time of mercantile dictatorship, which is as much inhumane as totalitarianism, but in refined forms of easy being or rather pseudobeing. There came the age of “democracy of impressions”. This is such an interesting form of escape from reality with the help of media: «NON VIDI? ERGO NON EST!» – according to Giovanni Sartori. – “Is it not shown? – It is not happening!” Hence journalism of truth remains to be somewhere on the margin, risking to vanish as huge layers of substantial information vanish from the informational world picture.
7
Ibid., p. 207-208.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals “We have faced global failure of news gathering and its true interpretation. – said Nick Davies. – Thus, we find ourselves in the chaos of knowledge where the very subject of global debate is converted from substantial into arbitrary; where policy of government, cultural values, widespread assumptions, declaration of war and attempts of establishing peace are poisoned by distortion; where ignorance is taken for knowledge and lies for the truth” 8. And if until quite recently journalism has been called chronicle of the day, and with its help one could see the portrait of the time, events, facts, names (let us mention, for instance, publicistic works by Ivan Franko), then at present we can suppose future generations not to have possibility to take anything valuable from modern journalism, because there is almost nothing valuable in it a priori, though with some exceptions. Unfortunately, it will be falsified and distorted portrait of the day, because cobblers from factory news are not guided by the rules of the journalism, which George Orwell observed for example. In the essay for British literary magazine Gangrel “Why I Write” he mentions “the historical impuls” as one of his motives for writing news articles from Burma as well as the book “Homage to Catalonia”. This was “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity” 9.What inheritance will we leave? Another challenge for journalism was the total deintellectualization of the very information space as well as the individual journalist. This is the transformation with the “minus” sign. During the ХХ century a journalist had a chance to become “a new type of intellectual” (speaking with the words of Jules Régis Debray, Pierre Bourdieu), and at present he risks to go down to the level of mediaworker (speaking with the words of Ryszard Kapuściński). We are not to go into details concerning the question “what is an intellectual?”, but let us, for instance, mention the definition of intellectuals by the American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset as those who create, distribute and apply culture, that is, the symbolic world, including art, science and religion. The American sociologist Lewis Coser considered intellectuals to be involved in the ‘core values of society’, or to be interested in the symbolic world, constituted by culture 10. In other words an intellectual is a medium of symbolic, cultural and intellectual 8 9
Ibid., p. 209-210.
10
Orwell G. Why I Write // Gangrel . – 1946. – Summer. – No. 4. Леклерк Ж. Соціологія інтелектуалів. – Львів : Ахілл, 2009, p. 11.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals power. According to the French sociologist Gérard Leclerc, “Intellectuals are socially responsible individuals, who are informally authorized to declare the open truth about society, and not at the level of individual recognition and temporary interests, but because of the fact, that the collectivity has to be the bearer of fundamental values bidding for universality and absoluteness” 11. With the emergence of new media the role of intermediaries increases. “Not just ‘classic’ intellectuals are forced to go ‘under the Claudine yoke’
12
of media, so to speak, to worship monks who
rule, according to journalists, civil discourses at present, but the very journalists now turn to these ‘new intellectuals. <...> “Journalistintermediary becomes an intellectual, a new type of an intellectual which is always media-intellectual” 13. Precisely he can be or could be such, however, is he such really? Is he a new type of an intellectual in the classic sense of the word, the intellectual who produces spiritual and intellectual meanings in the forms of a book, newspaper or scholarly article, or is he a pseudointellectual-media mediator with intelligence and intellectual power pretensions, particularly due to the phenomenon of mediatization? There are a lot of questions, but looking for the answers is another object of scientific and journalistic search. In conclusion let us add, that journalism will have its perspective and will not lose its ontological purpose, if it is guided by the Decalogue, including the journalist Decalogue. The latter is the one for example, that the Polish reporter journalist Jacek Hugo-Bader values in his works. In response to the question of the magazine Ukrainian Week “What ethical rules of reportage do you observe?” J. Hugo-Bader said, “Those relating to the whole of humanity. All the Ten Commandments. I do not have any special reporter code of ethics. For example, honesty with your reader that you had described a true story, that you had heard and seen everything with your own eyes … nothing dreamed up - this is the Eighth Commandment: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Respect for your hero, his dignity, vulnerability or even safety - that is the Fifth Commandment: thou shalt not kill. In Poland, Russia, as well as in Ukraine and worldwide, I think, there have been cases where journalists killed. With lies, slander, mindless interpretation. Our profession is to serve others. Our mission is to improve the world.”
11 12
Ibid., p. 65.
After the Second Samnite War (321 BC) the Roman army was clutched in the Claudine Forks, and having no way out it was forced to capitulate and sign an unwanted treaty. The Romans had to march out under a “yoke of spears”, they were forced to give up their spears and march under them, a sign of the ultimate battlefield humiliation. 13
Леклерк Ж., op.cit. p. 66.
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CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 6/2013 The Code Olha Kvasnystia, The mission of new mediaintellectuals
Thus, idealistic though it sounds, journalism does aim to humanize a man and to ennoble the world.
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