By XHABIR DERALLA
Let’s take a peek behind the editorial scenes, to find out who is responsible for what we read and see in our media. What we read and why we read it? What should be, but isn’t, the job of editors and the media overall? What are the values, if there are any? Who is (not) following whom? Here are some notes on these questions.
According to my humble experience, more as a good observer and not so much of a good practitioner, the role of an editor is to lead the editorial staff, the author and journalist team. Not only with ideas and directions, but also with work and personal example. I know several such editors, and I was lucky to be part of the teams of some of them. I know about others from what people have said or from my acquaintance with them.
Like driving a Bolide at full speed
The editor is responsible (also according to the law) for the content in the media platforms they run. The mistakes of the journalist team are (also) theirs. They are also in charge of creating the concept and editorial policy of those media platforms. Certainly, it is ideal when the editor manages to have close cooperation with the editorial staff, journalists and collaborative team.
It’s not an easy position, not far. Editors face endless questions every day and have to make many decisions about the selection and outline of the content. They need to constantly take care not to abandon the postulates of the editorial concept and policy.
Work in the media is like driving a Bolide at full speed, through a labyrinth filled with different kinds of obstacles. This comparison can be made in many other areas of life as well, but certainly applies to work in the media, and not only for editors, but for everyone who participates in media production.
Media are not advertisement boards
Unfortunately, the media and everyone in them often forget their main function, and that is to inform their audience and the wider public. Not to be advertisement boards, but to inform. (I would like to share some experiences and thoughts about this on another occasion).
The editorial policy of a media outlet should (in my opinion, must) be clear and reflect the values and concept that the journalist team signed in the impressum advocates for. Yes, an impressum is a must. If there isn’t one, then the least that can be said about that media outlet is that it’s an advertisement board. Or a suspicious operation.
Everything is politics
If the journalist team shares same or similar views and values related to political ideas, directions or platforms, it doesn’t mean that it is party affiliated, but that it has clear political views and ideas about the development of society. Political parties are entities that articulate and represent certain values, just like those who don’t have anything to do with those parties. They are formed just like civil society initiatives and organizations are.
The difference, among others, is also in that one of them (the parties, if it’s necessary to emphasize) fight for power, and the other ones are platforms for different kinds of civic participation in creating policies and practices. Or, simply, they are groups for sharing experiences and knowledge on topics that can be completely outside of politics (astronomy lovers, for example). Though some will correctly note that everything is politics, or that everything can come down to politics, including astronomical groups.
How? Well, imagine if you had that former sports journalist who once started dealing with state subsidizing of livestock farming come to power. He believes, for example, that the Earth is flat. Aside from the fact that he is an ideological follower of well-known little dictators and dictators. What would astronomy be like under such conditions?
Who needs to free themselves from what?
A dear friend of mine, an extraordinary intellectual and editor-in-chief in one of my favorite Macedonian media outlets, in a conversation recently said to me: “We need to free ourselves from that ballast that we are pro-SDSM”.
I didn’t agree with him. it’s the opposite. It’s society that needs to be freed from that ballast – the belief that only political parties’ rule with everything that is important in a society, especially with ideas. Our society is partisan to such an extent that every statement, text or action is seen through the prism of political parties – that it’s a position of one or another party. We must free ourselves from that!
False balance, whataboutism, propaganda, disinformation
We must free ourselves also from the false balance. That continuous relativization in public communication leads nowhere. The technique with which one responds to an accusation or difficult question with a counteraccusation or by raising a completely different question whataboutism, has become a model of common behavior for a large number of politicians, public figures and public opinion makers. The term, it seems, has still not been translated into Macedonian, but is wholeheartedly used as a practice.
We need to finally start dealing seriously with propaganda techniques from the time of the Soviet Union, which are super popular now. It’s high time that we understand that our obligation is to deal with disinformation, and not convey (publish) it.
If it’s not already late. And it is. Maybe too late.
The values…
In the center of our work and function (job) that we do in the public and society, are values. We are called upon to represent the values in which we believe in, and at the same time the main task of the media – to inform.
If we start to just list agency news as they come in, our function will get lost. We have an obligation to provide people with news and content in such a way that they will receive enough material for them to be able to make informed decisions.
If we convey the statements of politicians who want to come to power at any cost, usually at the harm of the citizens, our obligation is to find the facts with which we will prove that they are lying.
If we advocate for a progressive society, European and/or green values, for multiculturalism and for integration with Western associations of states, and in the country, there are political entities that exist and act in the same direction, why would that mean that we are also their followers and supporters.
Why wouldn’t it be the opposite?
Or, as it is most appropriate – why wouldn’t it mean that ideas, concepts, policies and practices are articulated in different ways, both in social movements that include the media and NGOs, and in the organizing of groups of citizens that form political parties.
It’s not as simple as it is described here, but that is the essence.
PS. Inspired by the wonderful conversations with Miroslav Jovanovic, Sloboden Pecat.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
