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Vitalie Calugareanu, journalist at Deutsche Welle
The dispute generated by RISE investigation from the last week has made me to feel a sense of professional insecurity as a person who dares to do investigative journalism in Moldova. For the first time in the 17 years of journalism, I experienced the feeling that you can be ‘crucified’ by your fellow journalists if, economically, that’s convenient for them. This does hurt worse than an unsuccessful trial in national courts. ‘The Court of Honour’ is the Supreme Court on which an investigative journalist counts when he/she decides to publish an investigation. The journalist is aware that those exposed will deny, attack, pursue, and corrupt to save themselves. Sometimes the journalist assumes unpredictable dangers – see the case of journalist Ján Kuciak from Slovakia. He/she knows that, under normal conditions, when he/she takes risks on behalf of the public interest, he/she will have at his/her side at least his/her fellow journalists, for whom this notion is not alien.
Debtors’ defenders
As far as RISE Investigation ‘Money from Charity’ is concerned, the number of journalists who criticized the investigation was suspiciously high. They practically made a united front with the trolls who mobilized to the call. Some colleagues expressed their ‘disappointment’ about the investigation while drinking coffee in newsrooms, others – on social networks. Others, with decision-making power in certain newsrooms, tried to prevent the dissemination of the investigation as much as they could. A few days after its occurrence, the ‘heavy artillery’ was launched: the VIPs – some opinion makers who tried to question the ‘quality of the journalistic material’ without declaring their conflicts of interest – the fact that they were previously sponsored by those who are involved in the journalistic investigation. How can we be sure that they don’t want just to pay them back? This wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t try to do this secretly. This way they gave us reason to believe that they probably hoped no one would remember and that their image would remain untouched and the debt would be returned to the sponsors. But the journalist, even the VIP one, cannot survive without ethics. In addition, when an opinion maker who wants to be respected becomes publicly involved with the former sponsor which is targeted by the investigation, and which intimidates the journalist by using an indecent language, he/she betrays commitments.
The travel to Istanbul of those 12 journalists from Moldova to the clinic targeted by the investigation was another element that kept us in touch with the subject. They did not pay their travel with their own money, or with the money of their newsrooms, even if one of them took charge of the expenses after the scandal broke.
The travel was also organized by a VIP, linked to the journalistic world, who in the meantime established a PR agency. Some have explained that they accepted to go to Turkey to do what the RISE journalists did not do – continue the investigation in a certain way. On return, one of the colleagues wrote: ‘We reached Istanbul. In the evening we found out the final agenda of the visit’. Hence, someone who paid their plane, meal and accommodation in a luxury hotel, also prepared the agenda of the journalists who went to Turkey to do in one day more than RISE managed to do in one year. Another female journalist from the group wrote: ‘All media representatives received gift packages from Medical Park’. However, some refused them. However, it doesn’t matter that you refused a candy pack after accepting other privileges, special treatments and favors that compromise your integrity.
In this case, the Code of Ethics was smashed into pieces when the heads of newsrooms accepted the offer to send their reporters ‘for free’ to Istanbul. What would have happened if the ‘Court of Honour’ really existed, if the Code of Ethics was a law, and if the ‘disciplinary liability of the journalist’ existed?
Dangers
During the last week I watched the atmosphere on various sides of the barricade. I listened to a lot of arguments, I saw grieves, tears, and decisions. At least three conclusions can be made – all equally dangerous. First: Some newsrooms do not raise journalists, but bands of slaves who are being denied the right to refuse to perform a task if it is against their journalistic ethics or against their own beliefs. The famous argument from the Mayoralty ‘I’m the boss!’ wins. The economic dependence of journalists on the media owners makes them quiet and loyal. Second: After the scandal broke, a synchronization of actions aimed to discredit, until the elections, the few media institutions that ‘bite’, and the phenomenon takes place so discreetly that some heads of newsrooms are not even aware of how they destroy themselves. Third: A group of VIPs with relationships and journalistic past emerged in the Republic of Moldova, which squeezes benefits from some sponsors by involving inexperienced journalists, working in different newsrooms, in missions incompatible with the journalistic principles.
Assumption
The investigative journalists’ tricks are diverse and difficult to predict. No one, apart from the RISE, can know what is the tactic the investigation team is using in this case. Publishing journalistic investigations ‘by pieces’ is a trick often used to trigger certain ‘speaking’ reactions that you cannot obtain in other way as a journalist. A lot of such cases are presented during the international conferences of investigative journalists. In the case of RISE, the ‘golden’ reactions simply flood immediately after launching the teaser. The most visible ones are the following: hysteria on social networks, intimidation of the journalist who undertook the investigation, the trolls that the charity certainly did not have (so they suddenly appeared out of somewhere), the urgent journalists' visit at the clinic in Turkey, the reaction of Sergiu Sirbu on the parliamentary platform... A journalistic investigation ends when the journalists decide. There might be no continuation in this case, but it is equally possible that a second or even a third party follows, especially since there is a file that must somehow get to an end. Secondly, we are speaking about RISE here – a role model institution in the realm of investigative journalism. Those who worked in RISE projects know what it means to pass through fact-checking ‘purgatory’ which is necessary to pass before the appearance of the material.
Therefore, I risk to believe that those who played the role of lawyers of the charity have rushed. First of all, I mean the journalists. We do journalism for the purpose of public interest, otherwise we do not differ from those who, in private talks, admit that they’ve chosen welfare at the expense of ethics.
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The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
