Translated material
"Journalists are not brotherly"
Recently, media in Russia has been subjected to severe pressure. Restrictive laws are adopted, some publications are closed, others are blocked, while at the siege position calculate the latest forces and means. Would journalistic self -organization help in such conditions? C OLTA. Ru asked famous Russian journalists the following questions:
1) Are you in a journalistic trade union or a creative union? Why yes - or why not?
2) Do you think such organizations are needed, in your opinion, media workers and what should they do?
3) Would such associations of journalists help to defend their rights in the current situation?
4) under what conditions would you join such an organization?
5) Why do journalists are skeptical of the idea of associations and unions?
Olga Allenova
Leonid Bershid
Olesya Gerasimenko
Katerina Gordeeva
Oleg Kashin
Alexander Malyutin
Sergey Parkhomenko
Olga Allenova
Special correspondent for ID "Kommersant"
1) No, I am not consuming in anything. Seven years ago, I wanted to get an international press card, for this, as colleagues said, it was necessary to join the Union of Journalists (it seems, the one that is all-Russian). I came there, they told me that for entry, recommendations from two members of the SZh, it seemed strange-the press card of the Russian publication is not the basis for receiving a journalist in a professional team, but we need some recommendations. I tried to find someone who would give me such a recommendation. Of the huge number of familiar journalists, I found only one that consists, but did not pay some kind of contribution for a hundred years and believes that his recommendation will not make me trustworthy. I probably was just unlucky, but I did not return to this idea anymore. Actually, I have a good attitude to various professional events that the SDR. It just seems to me that they could be more open. However, maybe my picture is outdated and everything has changed there for a long time.
2) are needed, of course, in order to protect the rights of journalists. Well, this is such a basic understanding of the role of the trade union. Probably, such organizations could have arranged different professional contests, distribute bonuses, publish some cool professional magazines that would scatter like hot pies-but all this makes sense if the organization is strong, really defends journalists, journalists know this and seek this organization. Because for them this is some kind of protection and a guarantee. In Russia, it is actually difficult to feel protected, but all the more important when there is someone’s shoulder nearby.
3) Well, I already said above that they would help if this is a real trade union.
4) if the trade union achieved, for example, to return to the work of a dismissed employee. Or at least honestly and frankly declared violations committed in relation to the journalist. This would be not just a private story of another dismissed journalist, but a certain verdict of a professional community, to which they would listen to both the profession and in power. And, of course, if the trade union contributed to the investigation of the beating of a journalist or murder. And it’s quite perfect if the trade union could make a statement that some publication violated, for example, the principle of journalistic ethics. Well, it lied frankly or insulted someone on an ethnic or religious basis. But again: all such statements would make sense only on the condition that the trade union is strong, it is headed by people with a good professional reputation and all this has authority in the professional community. Then it would be a shame to get a professional “f” from him. Yes, no one is safe from errors - but if this is a mistake, then the journalist apologizes, there is nothing wrong with that, the ability to apologize is generally the highest aerobatics.
In Russia, it is actually difficult to feel protected, but all the more important when there is someone’s shoulder nearby.
5) Probably, many people think about it, but it is not clear what to do. There are already journalistic organizations with many years of experience - these are entire devices with their bureaucracy, it will not work to change them, and it is not clear how. And to create new ones is difficult, problematic, and it seems to me that no one believes that journalists today can somehow influence the authorities so much that she will listen to some trade unions, at their request to conduct investigations, will cease to put pressure on the media and dismiss journalists. And if the trade union cannot influence anything, then why is it needed? It seems to me that the journalistic community is now disoriented, this is the main reason for passivity. And, of course, an important factor: journalists today are divided into hostile camps in their political views, so I can not imagine such a professional body that would be authoritative for both for others.
Leonid Bershid
Columnist Snob.ru, Forbes.ru, BloombergView.com
1) I do not I don't understand why this is needed.
2) I think that if such organizations were provided, for example, of some unemployment manual from membership fees, they would make sense.
3) Of course, they would not help. Not a single official organization dare to fight with the political line of the party, except that partisan and underground.
4) if he knew personally or at least on Facebook of each member. And it turns out that all Murzilka in one union with you require some rights-and you are with them. Well, even if there was an understandable scheme according to which a certain fund is formed from the contributions, distributed according to obvious principles.
5) Because we are essentially single artisans. Our workshop is very difficult to assemble a single organization due to completely different approaches to work. Well, no one wants to pay, of course, there is still such a problem.
Olesya Gerasimenko
Special correspondent for ID "Kommersant"
1) No, because it is not.
2) We need - to allocate tickets to the sanatoriums near Moscow for treatment and free milk on Fridays.
3) No, the trade union of correspondents or chief editors cannot affect state censorship.
4) If the members were provided with a 50 percent discount in institutions on Nikitsky Boulevard.
5) Because the problems, for example, the TV presenter, the operator of the news agency, the linear editor and the writer of the correspondent are very different, often opposite, and deciding them to convene a meeting of the trade union seems bad tone. To influence the real problems in the media - that is, one: complete submission to the interests of the owner - the trade union cannot. And because journalists are not brotherly.
Katerina Gordeeva
journalist
1) No, somehow there was neither a reason nor offers.
2) are needed. They should protect the rights of journalists, the development of corporate principles of work, the fight against censorship, help to journalists injured in the performance of professional duty, are needed when disagreements with the employer, in other situations.
3) Yes, if they suddenly happened on democratic conditions, without attempts to survey and drag blankets.
4) with the listed in paragraph 3.
5) the great influence of one’s own ego and fashionable theory of handshake/mercuminess, in addition, until recently, every journalist who had not yet got into a difficult situation seemed that he would never fall into it. This is time. Two-for example, a strike or some other collective journalistic actions that can lead to a little, the influence of the press (free press) on society is very small.
Oleg Kashin
journalist
1) I did not consist and did not be; From the very beginning of my career, the Union of Journalists was perceived (both all colleagues and myself) as a kind of reserve of Soviet pensioners, who at one time who at one time and trading it on behalf of the Union of Journalists. All the public activities of the SZh in the past twenty years show that such a stereotype, in general, correctly reflected reality. Another thing is that the experience of the Union of Journalists does not explain in any way why alternative unions did not turn out, which in these years were also sometimes created and immediately died.
2-3) This is already a common place: if the trade union was in Lenta.ru or if the trade union had set up for Kovalsky at one time. Yes, of course, the trade union is needed, and at some points he would very well help out many of those whom Dzyadko called a fucking chain.
Until recently, every journalist who had not yet got into a difficult situation seemed to be never in her.
4) I would join such an organization if I worked in some media and if a journalistic independent trade union cell formed inside its editorial office. But I am poorly imagining such a situation now.
5) When I was fired, at some point I sat down to write a letter to my colleagues. When I reached the phrase “We have no trade union, but we have a team”, I cursed obscenities and deleted everything written, did not write a letter-I presented how I would react if someone sent me such an appeal. I don't know what's the matter. Probably, Russians are truly hellish individualists, the Soviet government, including the post -Soviet, suppressed any empathy in us, everyone for himself, you die today, and I am tomorrow. In general, some kind of quite catastrophic story with solidarity.
Alexander Malyutin
Former editor -in -chief of Izvestia newspaper
1) I do not consume - there is no practical meaning.
2) are needed, not only on the scale of the industry, but at specific enterprises. They must engage in the protection of employees from unlawful dismissals and non -payment of compensation under the law.
3) In principle, already answered-the industry trade union, in my opinion, is not needed, but in specific editions it can be useful.
4) if he had good reason to assume that the employer would deceive.
5) Journalists are characterized by individualism, snobbery and carelessness.
Sergey Parkhomenko
Journalist and publisher
No, I am not in any union, because I never experienced any need and needs for this and could never imagine that any of the journalistic unions could be useful to me, although I was repeatedly called to the Union of Russian journalists. I must say that completely unexpectedly for me I received this year a prize of the Union of Russian Journalists called “Golden Feather”, which is very pleasing to me, but, perhaps, this is the only moment of my contact with this alliance.
2) On the one hand, there should be a purely economic trade union, which exercises economic protection, monitors the observance of the rights of journalists, allows labor disputes - exactly such a trade union that can be of railway workers, steelminds or bakeries. As for the creative union, it seems to me that this is a very distant future, although at some point some professional environment should still form in Russia. First, informally, most likely, on the basis of voluntary attachment to some document, the Ethics Code. And only then, on the basis of this voluntary association, voluntary recognition of some principles, can a professional community be formed in some special professional colors. In the 94th year, I was one of those 27, it seems, the person who wrote, signed and distributed a document called “Moscow Charter of Journalists”, and I still think that this is a very high quality document, relevant today. It was written using several very authoritative and well -established European ethical codes, in particular, French and Danish. This document exists, it is available in the program of all journalistic universities in Russia, and memory remains of it as a very good attempt to create an ethical code.
Of course, the trade union is needed, and at some points he would very well help out many of those whom Dzyadko called a fucking chain.
3) In the current conditions, the trade union could not contrast anything in cases of the defeat of specific media. I think that the trade union in such a situation, perhaps, would facilitate the fate of specific journalists, help them file a collective lawsuit, support their interests in court and increase their chances of winning and receiving compensation. But since events such as changing the editorial office of Lenta.ru or, for example, a well -known story of 2001, when the editors of the “Results” magazine were replaced on one day, take place for political reasons, in this situation, as they say, the company does not stop at the expenses. And here even the threat of sufficiently serious financial sanctions, the need to pay significant financial compensations in the court would not have stopped owners who fulfill their political duty and demonstrate their loyalty to the authorities. Well, they would hiccup and continue their business further.
4) I would have entered, perhaps, if I had a clear idea based on precedents that this trade union effectively protects the interests of its members. At the same time, it seems to me that such a trade union should be seriously differentiated - or maybe several trade unions: the trade union of media managers, the trade union of the authors, the trade union of those who are engaged in advertising and distribution, because the interests do not always coincide and, when driving into one trade union, these professional sections would be doomed to internal conflicts and mutual weakening.
5) Because journalists confuse two entities. The trade union is one thing, and the professional ethical community that imposes internal restrictions and requiring the execution of a certain ethical code is another. These are different stories. And it is pointless to endow some with the functions of others. And if the first is theoretically possible, although the creation of such a trade union would meet a very intense and aggressive opposition to media owners - there are quite a lot of cases when they directly said that they would not suffer trade unions in their publications, the creation of an ethical organization is impossible today fundamentally. This is not possible, since the environment itself does not demonstrate the need for this, but on the contrary, it is distinguished and frees itself from the latest residues of ethical restrictions.