On The Day’s style, ratings of events, and distrust

As earlier reported, the National Journalists Union of Ukraine hosted a meeting with The Day’s Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna in Kyiv last Monday, as part of a seminar for heads of press services. Most of the meeting was kept in The Day’s traditional question and answer format and there was the traditional contest for the best question, won by Valery Prozapas, deputy PR manager, Public Corporation Ukrtelecom in Zaporizhzhia oblast, a historian by training (his question, concerning historians inspiring the books Ukraine Incognita and Dvi Rusi from The Day’s Library, won him copies of both editions), and Iryna Babiy, editor of the newspaper Elektrometalurh (Zaporizhzhia) who was awarded a photo album with the best works on The Day’s traditional displays.

In keeping with the seminar’s specifics, the discussion centered on how the editor-in-chief of an influential Ukrainian newspaper saw the current practice of briefings and news conferences. However, allowing for the fact that the current relationships between press services and journalists are only one of the manifestations of the crisis of the system of interethnic communications, those present could not but discuss other problems characteristic of the journalist environment. Among other things, questions were posed, concerning The Day’s vision of solutions to these problems. Below is an account of the most interesting aspects of the discussion.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND CHANGE OF NOTIONS

Olena BONDARENKO-KONOVALENKO, head of press service, Donetsk Oblast Council:

Considering your rich professional experience, ranging from parliamentary reporter to the editor-in-chief of a major Ukrainian newspaper, would you please share your recommendations for press services; what we should and shouldn’t do, what makes a certain subject interesting for newspapers and journalists — apart from the banal requirement that a given subject must be interesting and important for the reader?

IVSHYNA: That requirement remains the main one... If a manager has enough flexibility and is actually determined to have normal relations with the press (including local and regional periodicals), his press secretary can help by locating truly topical subjects — something people tend to discuss during smoke breaks. Because all those posterworthy statements are not what people want to read and hear. When we learn to discuss things that are really interesting, our job will become considerably easier. For those with a firm and principled stand, there are no subjects worth being avoided. They have answers to any questions that can satisfy this or that part of the audience. Indeed, one of the problems is that people at times avoid transparency, distrusting one another. Some journalists are not always frank with good intentions; they attend press conferences and briefings having in mind something other than what the organizers plan. Sometimes they do not understand what is actually at issue. Therefore, every effort must be made to raise the journalist professional level. And the same applies to managers; they must learn to communicate with the press and be interesting to the media people. Instead, they sometimes appear totally unprepared and start babbling. It’s because they didn’t bother to prepare, analyze the situation, and formulate their ideas. They don’t know what kind of statement they want to make. And then the journalists have to rake their brains, trying to make sense of that stream of consciousness, come up with a heading and convey a thirty- line message to the reader. The result is often mutual accusations and hurt feelings. And then the pie-in-the-sky guys step in. Listening to professionals and writing informative stories takes quite an effort; one must get the gist of what is being said and then convey it to the reader. Cheap effects can look nice, but that’s just having a good time... Of course, there are no static recommendations, one must use one’s own recipe in every case.

There is another rule which I consider absolutely indispensable. When speaking at a press conference or a public meeting, one must be able to formulate ideas rather than tell a story or deliver a lecture. Ideas thus formulated are easily conveyed to the reader. It’s like the dramatic art. An actor is instructed to stand in a corner, facing the wall, then his lines are read out. Then he is asked if he has heard everything. Has he? Will he then retell it? If he can do so, the script is good enough. If a journalist is unable to retell what he has just heard at a news conference, if he can’t make a story, it means that the press conference was good for nothing, then no one should complain about lack of interest and practical effect.

Another nonetheless important factor, of course, is our split information space. Every proprietor uses his newspaper or his television channel for his own benefit, particularly to defend himself and attack adversaries in an election campaign, not for interethnic communications. Do we have nationwide ratings of events on any channel, in any newspaper, making them come to the fore by themselves? We don’t, because everybody has his own petty interests to pursue. Only on very rare occasions can we read or watch something which is most important for Ukraine. This has a great destructive strength. Our information space is torn apart to an extent when one has to visit the scene to know exactly what happened there. The effective home-to-home technology just as the Internet is developing so quickly. We must return to the general national media, to things that by their very nature should be made known to Ukrainian society. Not because someone pays for this, but because it is an objective necessity. Take an example. We journalists have visited the Ostroh Academy on several occasions (our readers know how much coverage we have given the subject of late). I was amazed by the level of instruction at that university, and by the very existence of that oasis in Rivne oblast, with cottages for the senior teaching staff, tennis courts for students, and two working languages, Ukrainian and English. I was amazed, because it all defied my concepts of what things can be accomplished here and how. People reading about the revival of this, Eastern Europe’s oldest institution of higher learning, were even more surprised. They asked us if this was really so (that brings us back to the distrust ratio). On the other hand, why do wewholive in this country know next to nothing about such important things? On the other hand, we are advised in every detail of the movements of a people’s deputy or show business celebrity. However, if the efficiency is nil — and we constantly hear precisely that — then it’s not just politicizing the media, but also substituting notions. The life of Ukraine is focused on other things. You must have seen the amount of information about large collectives, separate industries, private businesses, and their endeavors. All this is somewhere in the periphery. And all this is replaced by minor things. This inverted pyramid effect doesn’t allow us to have a clear idea about our own country, somehow assess its parameters, realize what things have a future and are worth being used as an example. In the regions the situation is perhaps a bit different, because their media, even if somewhat constrained, live with more concrete problems. In the all-Ukrainian media we have what I think are self-evident faults. Because we have certain stereotypes produced by politicians if it serves their purpose, and discarded if it doesn’t. And all the rest accept them, at times not bothering to take a closer look.

SHADES OF YELLOW

Natalia KUZMENKO, advisor to the chairman of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council, head of press service:

You have mentioned newspaper style. A number of periodicals are published with supplements. Have you considered a supplement for The Day? Something entertaining, showing a different aspect of life?

IVSHYNA: This takes a different specialization. One must be keenly aware of what people would be interested in here. I am not sure I could handle this as a journalist. For example, I am surprised to realize that people take an interest in such “incredibly interesting” [Moscow] television programs as Windows or Girls’ Tears. Of course, I understand that such programs are broadcast by channels precisely because they are popular. Yet I’d have never imagined that any such thing would attract any audiences. Another thing is that such programs, popular as they are, could be spared certain totally unpardonable elements.

Besides, I think that The Day and an entertainment supplement would make a poor combination. It takes a journalist staff enjoying the hunt for yellow information. Although I should perhaps point out that the yellow press has different grades and many shadows. Among them one finds more or less decent ones. But in every case, if one has to keep some standards, one must understand who one is working for. I’ve always considered that our newspaper should either wait for that new generation which will soon step into politics, or find people in the current situation who really need this newspaper.

In addition, we annually try to introduce something new in our performance, because it’s important to be clever, but not boring. This year, for example, we launched the column World Discussions. If we want to live in Europe, in the international community, we must take an interest in what is happening abroad, what topics are debated and why. It’s not for gardeners, it’s for those believing that the Ukrainians are born hedonists. Ideally, this column teaches one to enjoy what we have, our gardens and our attitude toward them, our values, our products, or ability to live beautifully. The columns History and I and Ukraine Incognita are projects within the newspaper. Of course, not gossip columns. If we take it up, we’ll find it hard to be any different from the rest. After choosing a path, we must stick to it and climb uphill. Climbing down is always easier. Of course, I understand that, commercially speaking, there are considerably more people buying less sophisticated periodicals, but we prefer to maintain the trailblazer’s complex status.

ORDINARY WORKINGMEN

Iryna BABIY, editor, Elektrometalurh (public corporation Dniprospetsstal, Zaporizhzhia):

We enjoy reading your newspaper, but I think you’d do better by adding features about the workingmen shouldering the main burden of building Ukraine — steelworkers, miners, and such.

IVSHYNA: I think that we’d do better by adding lots of things. Yet what you have in mind has certain limitations explained by specifics.. Under the Soviets, we would have to receive the party committee’s permission to visit a factory and talk to its workers. And if anyone said anything unconventional (the workers we’d talk to were carefully briefed by the factory’s party instructor), the interviewing journalist would enjoy it immensely and it would be an important event for the newspaper. Later, when such restrictions were lifted, no one was eager to visit factories and talk to people. Perhaps not only because there was no “social contract.” Many journalists had suddenly realized that such things no longer had their previous meaning. Sad, but a fact. The people must have somehow missed that historical opportunity to exert direct influence on the national policy. On the other hand, perhaps we shouldn’t expect this from the people. There is a thin elite (or proelite) stratum in every country determining the relationships. At present, it would probably be hard to expect a worker to stand up and tell you the truth which will turn everything in a different direction. For example, an attempt was made to resume appeals of work collectives. It turned out a bit more difficult.

However, we do have features about working people; we have the columns Life Stories and Personality. We sometimes ask our special correspondents (wherever we have them) to contribute such materials, depending on how they feel this will be received by the current reader. After all, many of us worked in the Soviet press and we know that our reader is nauseated by highfalutin writings, what or whoever the subject — a worker or a noted politician. We still have to find those special colors with which to paint portraits of modern workingmen. Who are these people? How will they respond to a suggestion to talk it over frankly. Previously, should a worker get out of line, talking to a reporter, the factory’s party secretary would get a dressing down, but the worker more often than not would get away with it, for he was part of their resource. At present, every employee is anxious to keep his job. I am not sure that people will agree to a soul-searching interview when it comes to some really pressing problems. Few workers will be willing to get it off their chest. That’s an entirely different sphere of our life, a different kind of passion and persuasion that we journalists still have to explore. We haven’t fully perceived our times or brought forth new values, new principles for both the employees and employers, for the service sphere, for everything.

IMPRESSIONS

Olena BONDARENKO-KONOVALENKO:

I agree with Ms. Ivshyna that we must learn on both sides of the barricade (if we assume that the relations of journalists with press services are a confrontation of sorts). With some press services lack of professionalism is a problem (to an extent), also having to work “for enthusiasm” and keeping closed. With some Ukrainian journalists, the problem is their rigidly biased approach to certain figures, structures, everything. Trying to avoid such stereotypes is a different matter. I am generally very impressed by our meeting with The Day’s editor-in-chief. I have met with her on other occasions and been always amazed at finding a woman in charge of a newspaper of such caliber ponder cultural and spiritual issues. Also, her significant print run is evidence that she is on the right course. Not everything is so bad in Ukraine, its population should not be regarded as a homogeneous mass loving yellow periodicals. Yes, some are fond of them, but many others live [differently] and need newspapers like The Day.

Anatoly KRAT, press attachй, Ukrtelekom Board in Kherson oblast:

Such meetings provide a great amount of practical experience, something we lack in the regions. Very interesting journalist and PR technologies are worked out in the capital. Here you have accumulated the best [media] forces that have worked out an assortment of methods that we may find very useful — of course, if we extrapolate them on our respective environments.

Iryna BABIY:

It’s my first meeting. Considering that it looks quite well represented, such meetings are something press secretaries need. In Kyiv, every newspaper works according to its own format. It’s very useful to communicate with newspaper and news agency editors, for it helps one understand their requirements with regard to press secretaries. In general, communicating with people representing Kyiv’s most influential media is always very useful in general human, not only professional terms. I found communicating with The Day’s editor-in-chief very interesting, because I think that the human factor is kept in the forefront in this newspaper. It’s very important for me as press secretary with a large company. Larysa Ivshyna also drew our attention to The Day’s photo contest and I think we’ll take part in it; it’s very interesting for us. Our company newspaper has a young staff and it’s important for us to hear what topnotch journalists think of our performance.