Promise!
Pinky promise!
So just to get things straight here. The moderator doesnt know what the current end goal of the war is, every reporter questioned dodges the question except for the very invested ukrainian reporter who really conjures up an argument of “we cant loose any cities anymore - because that would mean that more people have to suffer through what Butcha (a liberated city) suffered through”. Now thats great logic, that certainly rectifies an endless war. Without mounting any opposition, or giving any clarification on that argument, naturally.
Half of the panel admits that reporting in their country is one sided, but takes it with a smile.
The german participant has a very succinct way of explaining what good journalistic performance is. “Bild was surprisingly good here, because they went on guided, embeded journalism tours (my wording, but its discussed later on, on the panel) into the warzone, and hired ukrainian journalists, and even journalists from alternative russian media. So thats “good journalism” in her mind. She repeats it three times - hiring people close to one side, and then taking the press trips, organized by one side - makes it, per definition, excellent journalism.
The group then later gets into the discussion that they dont have any reporting on the other sides action, but that would of course only be the case, because russia doesnt allow for embedded journalism on their side of the warzone, and because russia has denied journalists visas who tried to travel into russia for reporting purposes, and has enacted draconian laws against journalists working within the country (up to 25 years of prison for publishing the wrong word).
So one sided reporting is fine I guess (not my interpretation, but the interpretation of three people on the panel).
And to counteract it, and the emotional priming and good/bad narratives, and not explaining any actions taken by political actors in any sort of depth, or providing any sort of context or pro/contra arguments on likely outcomes, that at least one journalist in the panel laments, is totally fine - because journalism will “reflect on it” once the war is over.
Sadly, the moderator doesnt quite understand what that means (“the war being over”, so what state has to be reached), and she has a conceptual problem with it, but after you see half a dozen reporters simply dodge that worry, put into an actual question for the panel, in a row - you start to be ok with it, right?
Oh, and the other reason named for the factual one sidedness of reporting is “we as a nation, and especially the public took a side in this conflict, very early on”.
So any journalistic criteria goes out of the window -- of course. Because we can take sides.
So let me summarize what happens, until journalism finds its way to evaluate its maybe one sided performance, after the war.
Energy costs double. Growth rate is reduced by 0.5% points per year. About 100 people die every day (currently), what “winning the war means” is unclear. But everyone is for it. Because there is no alternative. Because values. We are on the verge of a new global hunger crisis, if the EU and Nato dont get out Ukraines next harvest via land routes going through poland, or shipping from Ukraines black sea ports (Negotiations are in progress at the UN level - because its fairly unlikely, that they will start using the searoute, that the russians just opened (cleared of mines) from Mariupol), we cant talk about initiatives to end this war, if that means, that Ukraine doesnt get total territorial integrity back. Chinas manufacturing sector going offline currently will increase inflation spikes, green transitioning as a project takes the backseat to enabling energy security, and the state minister of foreign affairs of Pakistan just stated in Davos, that if this means, that her country gets into another hunger crisis, sticking to values, to her doesnt seem like the right move here… And of course - talking about compromises right now, would just embolden the aggressor, so we needed to make that a tabu as well. Until the Ukrainian leadership reached their military goals, which are unclear. Or unlikely. Or super fair, but we cant find out, because we cant talk about them, because we need to let them decide, without outside influence. Just with outside weapon shipments.
No worries though, journalism will reevaluate their reporting, once the war is over.
Oh, and one more thing. The Ukrainian journalist in the panel got it established, that “embedded journalism” in conflict zones, really is the only kind of journalism thats even morally rectifiable, because of the inherent danger to lives, and the risk of otherwise retraumatizing people journalists might interview. With those kinds of arguments you can get a “you are so right” out of the critical minds at Presseclub Concordia - every day of the week.
Next time on Presseclub Concordia, we invited two high rank US diplomats to tell us what the US is doing in this war, and what its goals are… (9th of June 4pm MEZ, keep the date.)
Because we didnt watch to see what Nina Khrushcheva stated on this very topic six days ago…
Diese Gesellschaft ist das Letzte.
