There have
been a lot of debates in Slovakia lately about who owns the news media. Does ownership affect the quality and
objectivity of reporting? Are the
internet and social media helping to dumb down journalism? How can newspapers survive in this new
environment? Is in-depth investigative
journalism on its way out because it is too expensive? Is this type of journalism important to our
society? Is it personally important to
you?
Firstly, I consider spreading tips how to deal with uneasy situation of Slovak media owned by corporation as very important and this interview, with expert on investigative journalism, multiple winner of Pulitzer price-Walt Bogdanich, gave me another view on this problem. I regarded ownership of media by certain financial corporations as irreversible. But as far as they will not interfere the content and they will fully respect the need for reporters to gather new information, there is no urgency to be aware. Walt Bogdanich also emphasized that if journalists feel endangered by the investment group which has bought its publishing house and is known for unfriendly approach to the media freedom, they should definitely and immediately change job.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, there was a question about the future of news as we know them nowadays. It may occur that in the world where majority of population has an internet access the news will be replaced by microblogs such as Twitter or blogs where the information has ability to spread with speed of a light. But over these internet resources, a deeply researched investigative report will always stand out. Even the most popular news like The Times has understood that they cannot compete with internet regarding speed. What they will publish next day is already on the internet for few hours. That is why they spend more money and they invest more to the investigative journalism. They provide readers with more sophisticated articles which they will not find on the internet, so I cannot agree with the opinion that investigative journalism will disappear, furthermore it might happen that future newspapers will be formed mainly with this content.
On the other hand the main problem and disadvantage of investigative journalism is its cost. Journalism of this type is much more expensive and due to economic crisis, Slovakia is no longer able to maintain the level of investigative reporting as it was in the past. The consequences of such a condition may be catastrophic. Without instant pressure and check on government there will be more space for corruption and frauds. In my opinion it depends only on journalists whether they will follow in the US footsteps and they will establish organizations to support education of reporters and lure them to analyse trickier subjects or they will give up in these difficult days when were, for example several reporters accused of crimes because of claims they made in their investigative stories. But one thing is certain, investigative journalism supports the main principles of democracy where we can have the freedom of the word and press and it is necessary for society to have such a type of reporting otherwise the population will be have just perfunctory information available and the biggest cases will remain undiscovered.
I agree with you in certain things, for example your opinion about existence and evolving of investigative journalism in future. I think that in a world where everyone may become a journalist, the professional ones will have to really excellent in their job to become well-known and supported. On the other hand, I disagree with what you mentioned in first paragraph. The way journalist is thinking and writing is definitely affected by who pays them. It's not about the feeling of freedom. But trust me you wouldn't feel well to write negatively about someone who feeds you. I also disagree with Mr. Bogdanich. Because slovak market of journalism is really small and limited. You can't find a job as journalist so easily as he imagines. I'm pretty sure many journalist are tortured with the idea of the big foot waiting over their head to react.
DeleteTo summarize my arguments, I would like to add, that journalism should exist only in investigative form. And if only talented and professionals people would be journalists, our lives would be affected in a better way by medias than they are now.
From Veronika Zrubakova:
ReplyDeleteAt first it was nothing interesting, but since Penta bought the Sme, it has been one of the most discussed topics all around Slovakia. Because at this point, big corporations got to own the main investigative and opinion forming media in Slovakia. Even though the leaders claim they would not affect the content of the newspaper, people have reasons not to believe it. Firstly, Mr.Haščkák (the owner of Penta) has announced he is not going to buy any company with profit under 20 million euros a year. And fact is, that this media he has bought not only profit far less, moreover, their profit is decreasing. So people think he must have different reasons for this trades. Secondly, I agree with Walter that it does not matter who owns the media, as long as he does not interfere, but people may see why Penta needs to shut the Sme up. Whole the Slovakia knew about their crimes, thanks to the Sme’s investigation. It was them who wrote about the Gorilla case. And suddenly Penta wants to help this newspaper? This is not very believable. The most probable explanation therefore is that this corporation wants to affect what Slovak media write about. They haven’t bought any small magazines, but aimed on the most read ones – the Trend, the 7Plus, and most importantly – the Sme. Despite the Ethical Codex they released (that they would not affect the content), I am sure they will. Not many people have noticed, but this codex has an expiration date in three years. Enough time for people to forget who owns the media. Then they have free hands to censor everything they need. And as they own most of the Slovak media, there may be a real problem to get this information and be informed about what is really happening in our country.
Because of this concentration of media in hands of the corporations I have to disagree with Walter that it is that simple for the journalists to leave their job when they do not respect their employee. I see the problem that the journalists does not have where to go. In Slovakia, there are not many untouched media left. Yes, there is the .týždeň and the new one – Project N, but as it is either small or yet unstable, these are not attractive jobs for the journalists. And I can honestly understand that they would rather be quiet about something that does not directly affect them than losing a job.
In spite of, and maybe rather because of, what is happening people should realize how important media are for us. Through them we get all we know about Slovakia. They form our opinion thus they should provide us with facts and not censor nor lie. And this exactly is what we are losing, we are losing the truth and information. I am really thankful for the .týždeň and I hope the Project N will grow into something objective and unaffected by the owner. The fact is we need those media, I think Mr. Bogdanich is right about that. We need facts, that are supported, not just tweets or blogs. Those are not reliable sources. I am with Walt, and I am optimistic about their survival. Therefore I hope the journalists in the media not censored by their owner will do their best to raise them. They should definitely do as Walt says: provide stories that we cannot get elsewhere, tackle more difficult subject and most importantly – write the truth. This is what can make them attractive and read. Moreover, not finding out that the media lie makes them trustworthy and we would not have the problem that criminals claim against journalists, because they would not have any reason. Walt Bogdanich is just right that their claims are against the principals of democracy – but only if we believe the person was honest. Sadly, in Slovakia people do not and really have no reason to trust the media.
Continuation of my comment:
ReplyDeleteAs previously stated, this issue was discussed in 2011 in Večer pod lampou. According to sme.sk, the guests included four of the accused, various people figuring in the trials and different public figures interested in the case. Although all concerned parties were invited into the discussion, the one representing the judiciary system declined the invitation (the judges and procurators). Despite this fact, the Council for Broadcast and Retransmission awarded RTVS a fine as high as 50,000 Euro. One of the reasons for this sanction was the breaking of the principle of objectiveness, same as in the previous case. However, another reason was that the program “damaged human dignity of the victim, the procurators and a forensic psychologist who figured in the trials”. As Štefan Hríb put it: “We gave space to the people whose dignity and rights were crushed by the communistic courts and we are fined for violating the principles of defense of human dignity?”. So once again, the efforts of journalists to reveal the truth about the social and political events were not backed up (as they have should been) but excessively punished.
According to Bogdanich, reporting should be given space to provide a check on government and corporate power. Theoretically, it is. There is no censorship and in most cases the media aren't manipulated. But practically, by punishing those individuals or broadcasting organizations who do provide this check the judiciary power intimidates all the others. As a result, there are not many journalists willing to oppose to the corporate or political power. And thus, the “society as a whole suffers”.
Here is the first half of a comment by Ema Mojzisova:
ReplyDeleteIn the interview, Walt Bogdanich states that “any effort to criminalise honest attempts [of journalists] to inform readers and viewers is antiethical to the principles of democracy”. However, in Slovakia the principles of democracy, the freedom of expression and press freedom are not only hindered by the ownership of media – as will presumably happen in the case of Penta owning Sme – and the criminal complaints filed against investigative journalists – as in the case of Tom Nicholson and cause Gorila – but also by sanctioning media for depicting the truth about current affairs. Such sanctions are often wrongly justified as forfeits for breaking the law of media objectiveness. Lately, there have been various situations of this kind. Let's take a look at two of them.
The most recent one is the case of the reports on Ukraine by RTVS. According to .týždeň, the Council for Broadcast and Retransmission (Rada pre vysielanie a retransmisiu) administered a sanction to RTVS for not following the principles of objectiveness and disinterestedness in various reports regarding the conflicts in Ukraine. The sanction was assigned as a reaction to a complaint claiming that the television did not give objective information about the current events and depicted one side of the conflict (Russia) as an aggressor without giving the opportunity for self-defense. As stated by omediach.com, two of the reports of RTVS can be identified as controversial when concerning their objectiveness. In the first one, the Russian Federation was accused of military intervention in the area of Crimea while not presenting the standpoint of Russia itself. However, no official statement from the Russian government existed in the time of this report's broadcasting. Vladimir Putin's conference about the situation in Ukraine – in which he denied that the soldiers operating in Crimea are Russian – took place as long as three days after the broadcast. The second discussed issue reported the Ukrainian Prime minister A. Jaceňuk who accused Russia of militarily engaging in Crimea with the aim of starting a civil war. Nevertheless, a statement of S. Aksionov - the Prime minister of The Autonomous Republic of Crimea - and two of the attendants of the pro-Russian demonstrations were included in the exact report. If these statements are not considered as the viewpoint of the opposite side then what is?
Another similar situation happened in the case of Večer pod lampou, Štefan Hríb's chat show broadcast by RTVS. The episode that aired in June 2011 discussed the issue of the case of Ľudmila Cervanová, a 19-year-old student of medicine murdered in 1976. After her death, a police investigation full of blackmail, false confessions, manipulation and withhold of information begun. The whole case was massively propagated in media. Seven innocent young men were charged and imprisoned. A death sentence was proposed for three of them - a sentence which they narrowly escaped. After the revolution in 1989, a retrial was ordered. However, the court upheld the sentence despite of various new evidence proving their innocence. All seven defendants have taken a polygraph examination. In the results, no lie was detected. Today, the accused are middle-aged men who were caught up in the political conspiracy of communist regime and whose lives have been destroyed by the corruption in Slovak judiciary system.