Contemplating the future of journalism

George Brock at news:rewired 2010 from BBC College of Journalism on Vimeo.

Smuggling and activism frowned upon in Russia

I prefer not to think of my perspective as jaded. But often events can appear so completely predictable. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the concerns that the municipal elections in Moscow would be rigged. Human rights activists were concerned about this, and quite a few protested, according to news reports. "Quite a few," of course, is a relative term. Considering the inherent risks of any sort of anti-government protest in Russia at the moment, anything more than half a dozen qualifies as quite a few.

About 50 activists were arrested by police. Predictable. And now comes word that they are still being held. Also predictable.

Slightly surprising was word about the arrest of Valentina Shadrina.

The director of the Altyn jewelry company was accused of smuggling precious stones and jewelry. Since its start in Kazakhstan, the company has developed an international chain of jewelry stores favored for low prices on jewelry.

It's hard to believe that someone would have forgotten to pay off the necessary official, so the arrest could indicate some power shift within the FSB.

Finally, on an idealistic note, the St. Petersburg State University has organized a contest for young journalists. The Russian language details are here. The suggested themes of the contest are: "helping senior citizens, homeless children, former prisoners, cleaning trash, volunteering during the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, healthy lifestyle and others."

Nothing too much objectionable, assuming that the pieces are written "correctly."

What are ethical duties when confronted by injustice?

Teaching has its moments when you lead students to a certain point, and you may have made your conclusion, you might think that the conclusion is quite clear, obvious even, but your students just don't want to make that leap. When it comes down to it, they don't agree with you. They don't see it your way. Perhaps they are from a different generation or just have not seen the world your way. Perhaps they never will.

I was thinking about that today as we discussed Out of the Picture, a report by Freepress on the ownership of television stations by minorities and women. The report, not surprisingly, paints a pretty bleak picture of the situation in the United States, where the vast majority of stations are owned by white men. Even areas that are quite heavily populated by minorities are not served by stations owned by minorities.

We discussed the issue, and discussed the implication - and then I asked the critical question: Does this have to do with ethics? I can make the connection, because to me it concerns issues of social justice. But the students didn't see it that way. The white men own what they own because they are well connected. Sure. But this is legal, right? Nothing wrong with being rich.

I pointed out that the broadcast spectrum is really a public good, to be allocated so that the public benefits. But these children of Reagan Era have a different perspective. Anything hinting of affirmative action is bad. And having a policy that gives some sort of preferential treatment to minorities is bad.

I did not ask my students this question, but it intrigues me. How is this situation ever going to change, unless the government takes some action to remedy the imbalance?

I'm not out to convince them of anything - per se. But I want them to really see the reality of the media world around them, and ask themselves if it is really a just situation. And if it is not just, what is the ethical response? What is the ethical response to injustice?

Stories

I met up today with one of our former students from the Baku journalism program. She’s living now in Baku, working as a poorly paid journalist. We chatted about friends and what they’re doing - and then about what she’s doing. She wanted to get some of her articles translated into English - not an easy task, really. My friend really has some interesting work, and it reminded me of the tangled knot of problems this country faces.

One example. Last year, the government agency in charge of education decreed that all primary school students needed uniforms. But - the tender for providing these uniforms was not awarded competitively, so not surprisingly the uniforms were expensive and shoddy. Because they are so expensive, many families face additional hardships, outfitting their children for school.

So - again we have a decision made to benefit inside cronies that directly harms the welfare of ordinary Azerbaijanis. This is true in so many sectors of the economy. The monopoly on cement - held by a government insider - forces higher building costs - which again affects the whole economy. There is even a government monopoly on the import of shoes. I personally know two people who were forced out of business because of this monopoly. Who benefits from these monopolies and uncompetitive tenders? Government insiders. But because the government is not run democratically, there is no systematic way to cleanse the “rent takers,” as they are called in political science. Sure - one government official might fall from favor and lose his comfy post, but he will be replaced by an official that will almost certainly be or become equally corrupt.

My friend’s article was published in one of the few independent newspapers. But changing the pattern of corruption will take more than a few newspaper articles.

(Above is a picture of the Kepez Hotel, mentioned in the previous post. Not scenic in any sense -but a remarkably good example of Soviet architecture.)

Another course begins

First day of class in Sheki. It went well, aside from the day being unusually hot. We were fortunate that our room was air-conditioned – but the air-conditioner was inadequate for the size of the room. We survived and no one melted.

The number of people in the class was less than I hoped – but they were mostly experienced journalists. The first day is always introductory – at least in the classes I teach. I like to get to know the students a little – and have them get to know each other. One useful assignment I give for the first day is a news story assessment. I bring in a bunch of newspapers, and have the students pick out a couple of good news stories and a couple of bad news stories. Then – they explain their evaluations to the class and me. Their assessments reveal how they evaluate the news in general.

For example, one fellow today picked out one story as a bad story, because it was about a journalist who had been libeled in the government media. The article he picked out said that the journalist was actually a good guy. So this was confusing. Confusing = bad. Perhaps it was not surprising that the student himself worked for a government media outlet. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable.

In general, students thought news articles that agreed with their opinions were good. If they raised uncomfortable facts, they were bad. An article about a rash of poisonings in Baku was judged bad, for example.

The Armenian issue came up. Entirely predictable. One fellow chose as a good article a recapitulation of the argument with Armenia. This was useful, he thought, so that all the reasons for hating Armenia were laid out there in one place. I didn’t argue with him, but I brought up his example – indirectly – later when I talked about what is news. “News” means that there is something new. Something happened since the last time the subject was discussed in the pages of that newspaper. There is a new reason to write an article about this subject. I’m not sure if the journalist got my drift.

At the end of class, the journalist who was suffering from cognitive dissonance came up to me and asked if I had ever been to Armenia. I replied that I haven’t been there.

After class - I wandered around, although the afternoon was hot. Walked up to the old city. The palace of the khan, which is one of the big tourist draws here. I visited it when I was here back in June. It is definitely worth the trip. The whole complex is interesting as a whole.On a hot Monday afternoon, I seemed to be the only foreign tourist. I stopped for tea and some fellows offered me Russian vodka. I declined their invitation to drink, but the sentiment was nice.

Here are some photos from the day. The boys are from my neighborhood. I was intrigued by the toys they had made for themselves - little sticks with wheels, which they turn into pretend cars, running down the alleys, chasing sheep.

National Press Day in Azerbaijan

Elchin Shikhlinski, editor-in-chief of Zerkalo and chairman of Azerbaijan's Journalists' Union, is interviewed in today's edition of Day.Az, the more-or-less independent Azerbaijani news portal. The interview focuses on corruption among journalists. This is an important topic, certainly, but I wonder whether corruption is the main problem in the sphere of journalism. The entire system is built to exclude honest news coverage as much as possible.

I have met Shikhlinski, and I respect his position as a journalist who attempts to publish an independent newspaper against steep opposition. And the interview begins with his straight-forward assessment of the state of journalism and society.

"Certainly, Azerbaijani journalism today is in a poor state. But it is an axiom that Azerbaijani journalism is a reflection of the state of our whole society and problems of media representatives are integral part of the problems of the whole society. Thus, it is naive to hope that problems of Azerbaijani journalist will be settled more quickly that the problems of our society."

The interview is timed for National Press Day in Azerbaijan. I'm not sure what the meaning of this holiday is. One of my students called me up to congratulate me on it. The International Press Institute used the occasion to to call for the president of Azerbaijan to release four imprisoned journalists. As the IPI notes in its statement, "Azerbaijan has earned the unenviable reputation of being among the world’s worst jailors of journalists."

Note: The picture has nothing to do with journalism. It's a cat - sitting on a tandoor oven at the bakery where I buy my bread. I suppose this might frowned upon by health inspectors, if such people existed here.