Today I read this post on Facebook and now my only feeling now is that time of silence has passed. And whatever has passed is past. I can`t get when Indian media is using such loud statements like RUSSIA BETRAYS INDIA or NPO MASHINOSTROYENIYA SOLD BRAHMOS TECHNOLOGY TO CHINA using words reportedly. No sources. No official statements. Is it misinformation? Lies? Fabrications? Why not to ask NPO MASHINOSTROYENIYA for official comments? I would suggest NPO MASHINOSTROYENIYA to file FIR against Indian - Aerospace/defense NEWS. That`s my loud statement. Now I would like to talk about journalism in XXI century. This opinion would be personal and has nothing to do with my job in TASS Russian News Agency, which has no responsibility for what I will say. 1) USING SOURCES nowadays in journalism is very often associated with telling a lie. Yes, telling a lie, not making a mistake. I saw such examples on Russian TV-channels. CNN, Fox News. Using a source means having legal roof above your mass media, when somebody goes to the court. I was not lying, my source has misguided me! Smart enough. I and many of my colleagues check our sources twice or thrice before publishing, especially on the controversial issues. That what I was taught in Lomonosov MSU faculty of journalism by our dean Yassen Zassoursky and other scholars, that what I was taught in my news agency TASS. People who doesn`t do this, misguides not only people, but media in general. After one such shoot during the information war comes another and then there will be no more information but the propaganda from both sides. Lie is as heavy as bombs and it also hurts first of all vulnerable parts of the society. 2) FREEDOM OF SPEECH is a basic society need, isn`t it? Yes, it is. But what is difference if propaganda prevails either on State-oppressed, or totally free news channels? What is the difference for viewers of these channels in Russia, China, India or the West. 3) HALF TRUTH is also lie. Earlier there has been Su-30MKI crash in India. This is a story, published by Indian Express newspaper: The flight data recorder of Indian Air Force’s Sukhoi-30 MKI that crashed into a field near Pune has been recovered and preliminary findings suggest a technical snag in the fly-by-wire system as the cause and not human error, say sources. Now after the investigation is over, nobody but Russian media published that the real reason behind the crash had been human error (by the Indian pilot). That was not mentioned anywhere. Why Indian Express and Indian - Aerospace/defense NEWS are so fast when investigation has just started and so slow even four days after same investigation is over? Secondly - reliable military sources don`t disclose anything before the official results are ready. So there is one more reason to question such sources who blamed technical snag before they had a chance to understand each and every point. 4) ONE-SIDE VIEW is PR but not journalism. If somebody comments on controversial issue as a source, 90% - he is using your for his good. And then we are back to point #2 about FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Are we free to lie? Please let me ask my friends from the media who use their defense sources? Do you really think that bureaucrats` love for us is strong enough to share military secrets? Are you sure that one exclusive costs more than person/company/country we can hurt with such a mistake/lie? 5) DEAR READERS, we, journalists, have been taught to question each and everything. The question is only one - Who gets the profit (not necessary that profit is money)?. Now time has come for you to question the journalists about the same. Not me or Indian Express - all of us.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 17:26:32 +0000
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