HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

by Venera Musina, editor and publisher of the family newspaper "Borovinok ,"

Chair of the Regional Association of Women Journalists, Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan

No one was left untouched by the crisis of the nineties. Each Russian city struggled through the crisis in its own way but it was an especially difficult time for large industrial cities centered around one specific industrial enterprise, such as our native Naberezhny Chelny. Both the giant truck-producing plant KAMAZ [consisting of twelve factories], a source of pride for the entire country, and our city which was built by party dictate fromscratch in only 5 years, turned out to be ill prepared for the sharp turns of market economics. The factories developed, the budget screeched to a halt, and the crisis of government only made matters worse. Newspapers and radio stations shut down one after the other. Journalists joined the ranks of the unemployed, whose numbers reached into the thousands. The romantic stage of Perestroika had come to an end and the changes in our lives became more pronounced. Hence in the blink of an eye, we had obtained the freedom we never even dreamed of, that we hadn’t even really fought for and of course, at the time we weren't ready for this freedom. Every cloud has a silver lining, and can anything be more precious than freedom. This realization came to us a little later. In the meantime, we had to survive in the conditions of crisis and full-fledged freedom.

Life doesn't stand still; the spaces left when traditional post-Soviet mass media shut down were soon filled by others. The information market underwent serious changes and dynamic development. Journalism was in demand once again. The age created its own conditions and presented new demands. The new leaders in media, often far from journalism, created their own order dictated by market and demand.

Uncertainty and dissatisfaction with the current situation encouraged us women journalists to get together and try to view ourselves objectively. "Femina," a woman's social organization, supported and helped us a great deal. They invited a sociologist and together we developed a research program. The first group of activists consisted of 5 journalists and soon 8 more joined us. Within three months we had gathered information, processed over one thousand questionnaires and scrupulously gathered all our materials from newspapers to get a statistical picture that reflected the real situation and place of women journalists in current day mass media.

First of all, what we discovered showed that our weakest area is illiteracy in legal affairs. In order to defend and stand up for our individual rights, we need to know what our rights are. This must begin with the ABCs. Secondly, on the whole, we all turned out to be pathological cowards. There is very little belief among us that a person, much less a woman, can stand alone in opposition to the systems of power and money. A deeply hidden inferiority complex stands behind our appeasing position and passivity. Thirdly, the attitude towards journalists among those in power has not changed over the years - in their minds, journalists remain service personnel, a mouthpiece for their views and opinions. This is felt keenly on the level of cities and regions. Fourthly, a woman in journalism is usually staff rather than a manager or director and hence is cheap labor. Fifth, recent times have seen the appearance of "independent" print media that belong to private individuals. There is an alarming tendency at work in the new mass media market structures: journalists are less protected socially, there are no trade unions, the standards of KZOT of the Russian Federation are not being met, sick leave is unpaid and there is dual bookkeeping. All of this has a direct effect on pensions and sick leave. Furthermore, the criteria favoring dismissal are very stringent.

Overall, as you see, the findings are not in our favor. It seems that the ideology was replaced, people were freed from Leninist dogmas, everyone started to talk about democracy but alas they did little more than start. In fact, the position of women has only gotten worse because our "socialist" morale has in our minds been replaced by a traditional "domostroi" morale [in earlier times, a written collection of Russian morals, manners and behaviors defining women's domesticity]. It should also be taken into account that we live in Tatarstan, [a part of Russia] where the majority of the population is Muslim.

Recall the beginning where I mentioned that freedom came to us unexpectedly. What are we to do with this little piece of freedom, how do we handle it? A few people have found an answer even to that question and each person has gone his or her own way. First of all, freedom was seen as a good thing and not as a condition of unemployment. Secondly, freed from the shackles of being a hired laborer, each person tried to find work not as a subordinate but rather as a partner. What did this mean in effect? To excel in this environment, one had to create new workplaces and fill them. People couldn't afford to be scared, they had to get with the program and change their ways.

During this time many journalists went into advertising, ran PR campaigns, became PR specialists, founded information agencies; in effect, they developed new fields and unoccupied niches within the information arena. The really daring ones started their own enterprises or acquired the status of private entrepreneur. To gain economic independence within our chaos is very difficult and risky. This is a separate topic and we won’t get into it here.

In many ways, the free life of women-journalists has turned out to be a life of "loners." The intellectual potential of women-journalists was in demand on the market where it was and is used actively to promote the advancement men-directors. But why can't a woman express her own opinion? At one point the Association of Women Journalists had the idea to create regional divisions and the "Woman Journalist" club. The journalists of Chelny decided to join forces and act as a team. We set three objectives for ourselves: professional training, education in legal affairs and united action. What we mean by the last point is that journalism is our main profession and we journalists have a lot in common and however life may have jerked us around, we still want to talk, and voice our opinions while actively taking on and asserting our civil position. In the form of a union, the association allows us to be heard by society. We write statements in the name of the Association of Women Journalists about vital issues and distribute them to mass media via email. For example, we were greatly alarmed by advertising billboards whose content was aggressive and could provoke violence. All of the newspapers printed our letters and the advertiser removed his billboard. The company representative tried to challenge us, saying that there is no censorship any more, that we don't have the right to do such things. "There’s no censorship but we have the right to express our opinion" was our answer.

A final important point: one of the founding principles of our association is collective action. It shouldn't become any one person’s PR campaign. We are now at the stage of formation and the meetings with journalists from other regions inspire us and keep us going. The small amount of freedom we gained gave us journalists the amazing ability to express ourselves on a fundamentally new level and we'd like to make the most of this opportunity.