|
August 23, 1997
REAL-LIFE JOURNALISM Arriving home in London for a few weeks... ...it's the familiar sounds as well as the sights that remind me I've returned to much more international surroundings. BBC Radio 4, arguably the world's definitive public broadcast channel, is talking about -- the United States. It's a discussion about women in the American workplace, and the reasoned, unforced and genuine tone of the discussion is in sharp contrast to much of the media noise that has surrounded me for months while I've been touring the country at issue, the U.S. Turning on the TV is even more striking: I find newscasts that have the look and sound of journalism, not ratings hype. On ITN, the BBC and Channel Four, the stories follow a natural news agenda at home and abroad. There is not the deliberate, artificial formatting of the main U.S. broadcasts; there is credibility, a sense that the stories have been laid out by professionals who care to keep the community informed rather than merely scandalized and titillated for ratings points. Which is not to say that Britain's broadcasters are not threatened by the same destructive forces that have so deeply injured editorial standards on U.S. television. They are: the quest for ever-higher ratings at any cost has led some network executives to question the value of traditional hard news coverage, particularly from abroad. Even Radio 4 is being "modernized" to pull in more listeners. Fortunately, British broadcasting is protected, I believe, by a much more conscientious attitude among working journalists. High standards are recognized to be worth fighting for. A direct relationship is seen between sound journalism and the well-being of the community. If reporting goes soft, democracy suffers. Now that might be a tough argument to justify in the comfortable consumer societies of Western Europe and North America. But while strolling through our local bookstore in London, I came across an excellent new book from a not-so-far away country, Columbia, that reveals how vital the institution of journalism can become in a community at war with itself. In NEWS OF A KIDNAPPING (Jonathan Cape, publisher) Nobel-prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez recounts the true story of a string of political kidnappings in Columbia in 1990. The former head of the Medallin Cartel, Pablo Escobar, launched the kidnap campaign to pressure the government into repealing provisions for the extradition to the United States of the country's powerful drug barons. Among the hostages plucked from Columbia's leading political and media families was Francisco Santos, nicknamed Pacho, the editor in chief of the newspaper El Tiempo. Within minutes of his abduction by hooded gunmen, during which his driver had been brutally slain, Santos was interviewing the gang members: "Who's holding me ?" In this electrifying book, Marquez reminds us that Columbia's journalists were on the front line of the country's drug wars: 26 reporters and editors were murdered between 1983 and 1991. The odds against survival for Pacho Santos and the other nine hostages were extremely high. So the editor chose his words with painstaking care when Escobar's men instructed him, several months into his ordeal, to write a letter to his family proving he was still alive. He asked President Gaviria to do everything he could to free himself and the other journalists. "But," he warned, "what matters is not to ignore the laws and precepts of the Constitution, for these benefit not only the nation but the freedom of the press, which is now being held hostage." Even in captivity with his life dangling by a thread, Santos' priority was not to cave in, not to surrender law and justice and journalism to the forces of violence. Admittedly, Marquez's book tears back the covers on a nation writhing in political and social turmoil. But the parallels with more ordered societies are clear. Decent lawmakers and journalists everywhere would like to think that if the gun were pointed at their own heads they would behave with the kind of courage displayed by Pacho Santos. But isn't it true that this kind of reasoned determination, this pride of craft is the result of constancy, of an everyday belief that the work you are doing has some broader significance, a meaning beyond dollars and ratings points and glamour ? And if a reporter allows his personal practice to be compromised by greed or misconduct on the part of his bosses, doesn't this erode his or her capacity to stand up for principle and standards at times of crisis ? Ask yourself: what would you write if you were in Pacho Santos' predicament ? It's an intriguing question to ponder as you undertake your next assignment, whether it is a story of real significance to your community, or just another soft or sensational ratings-grabber. |
| Next time... | come on assignment with Fast Forward Films, the company born out of our successful tabloid-TV lawsuit against NBC.
See you then... |