Moldovan press and the culmination of alienation

At the beginning of October, 2015, The New York Times published a historic manifesto –”Our Path Forward”. This document presents the digital strategy of this prestigious media, with 150 years of history, which after a century and a half of activity had the courage to face the new technology challenges and in just 5 years reached a record number of 2 million of subscribers and a monthly audience of about 140 million of readers of print and digital information.

The document contains valuable economic, analytical and managerial solutions, which may become a real development lesson for any media in the world, and the Republic of Moldova is not an exception in this respect. Provided that those who have analysed or will analyse it will pay attention to a sentence, which, hidden in the hearth of this text, in fact reflects both the essence of success recorded by The New York Times and the future achievements. ”More than anything, the best journalism will continue to separate The Times from the competition”.

At the end of December 2015, in Chisinau, where none of the TV audiences can compete with the number of subscribers of The Times, a totally different event marks the local media phenomenon– halting between a diplomatic scandal and a slap given to the good professional sense.

It is about the false committed by Publika and HotNews.md, which placed a Facebook status posted by  ES James Petit, US Ambassador in the Republic of Moldova in an arbitrary, tendentious and even dangerous context. So, the American Ambassador wonders in his posting”… if anyone is thinking about what the Moldovan people want? Democracy is about truly representing the will and desire of the people. Being a democracy means truly serving the people you represent. Leaders in a democracy should be servants to their country and their citizens – not the other way around. Let’s hope the goodwill of the holiday season prevails and leaders act for The Moldovan People”, noting the slow pace of Moldovan politicians in making important decisions for the existence of our country. Thus, the two media sources are rushing to assign the rhetoric posting of the Ambassador as a reaction to the initiative of the President Timofti to appoint Ion Sturza as candidate for the office of Prime Minister. Even if the initiative was made after the ambassador’s message was posted.

Are these two events compatible? As importance - of course not. Instead, they contain two diametrically opposed aspects of the future that cannot be ignored. The manifesto of the New York publication is the starting point towards a sustainable future, towards a journalism that aspires “to cultivate another generation of readers who can't imagine a day without The New York Times”. The behaviour of Publika and HotNews.md is, certainly, a starting point towards self-destruction and education of a new generation of Moldovans who have no idea about what mass-media serves for and who, sick of manipulation, propaganda, non-professionalism, will ignore the press as phenomenon. ”The Petit case” is just one of the many examples of media shamelessness we are witnessing and against which, fortunately, there has been a prompt and tough reaction from the primary source.

A society of alienated
I think that the most appropriate term for the current situation is “alienation”, as we witnessed the transfer of the entire human activity and its results (work, social institutions, spiritual values) into foreign and inimical forces, depersonalisation of humans, accompanied by distortion of personal relationships by the force of money, of social rankings, the distorted reproduction of the reality.  However, both the philosophic meaning of the above-mentioned word and the legal one (transfer of the title to property) and even the medical one (alienation, nuttiness) seam to fully correspond to the moment.

On the one hand, we find an alienation of the press, which became the hostage of the political game, without noticing how it changed its role from coquette (courtesan?) to hostage. On the other hand – there is an alienation of the society, which, deprived of the fundamental right of being informed, swallows Mbps of manipulation and propaganda every day, thinking that it is being informed.

The sin is almost general! Neither the media that serves the power, nor the one pretending to be the opposition, managed to withstand the temptation. You should watch a news about the same protest at Jurnal TV and Publika TV! A participation of 5000 of people becomes 50.000 in a case and 500 in another. The figure is not just vociferated. The image will be appropriately tricked. And it no longer matters that we talk about events from 2015 if we show images from the Grand National Assembly – the real one, from 1989? Or does it matter that the other channel filmed the square in the morning, when the groups of people just started to come to protest? The goal dictated the means.

How is it possible that 3-4 experts talking at the same TV discussion lasting for 2 hours share the same opinion? Not even members of the same family joined at a family dinner manage to reach a consensus when discussion about the Republic of Moldova. Even if the experts are right a hundred times, the good practices of the journalism provide for the need of a strong opponent, able to balance the discussion. Or, the sole goal of all these tricks is to ensure a hyper-engagement of the society into a continuous conflict, after which the citizen should feel continuously guilty: because he/she did not elect the right people, because he/she believed in promises, because he/she did not go to protest or because he/she did this, but not to the expected one. Or, by contrary, watching other broadcastings and other channels, the viewer should conform himself with the idea that the die has been already cast, decisions were made and nothing can be changed.

Everybody with his deaths
Unfortunately, our politic class had not learned how to build and govern a country, falling a prey to some bad practice of illusory governance by means of mass-media, when the media presence is confused with the politic influence. You should analyse the most influential Moldovan politicians from the last 5 years and make a comparison with their presence in the media. And then you will easily notice that those who disappear”from the view” also disappear from the top. This confusion between influence and presence, that the political technologists strongly try to put upon us, is distorting the citizens thought and perception, cultivating false values. In 1977 Roger-Jerard Shwartzenberg was warning in his work ”L'État spectacle. Essai sur et contre le star system en politique” (The state-show. An essay about and against star system in politics) on the fact that media phenomenon replaced the project with the profile, and the message with the image”. 

Moreover, even politicians prefer to be lied by the press and hear what they want to hear, refusing to accept the autonomy of the press. None of the leaders has had the courage so far to look at the press as to an exact diagnostic device that could reveal the problems and influence their agenda. Both the press and the politicians accepted the agenda to be dictated by the first, and the result is terrible.