Modern news journalism is so fast that there’s simply no time to check the news according to sources - while you check it, everyone else will publish it. In any Telegram, where all publications, from tiny channels operated by one person to a huge media holding, are in absolutely equal conditions and next to each other in the same tape, this speed becomes crucial. It is speed, not reliability.
Yes, just the other day there were two news, reflected by restless citizens on social networks with such hopelessness in posts that it is even surprising that almost none of the publications went to see what was the matter. What for? Indeed, now there is other news, and these are already a thing of the past.
The first news is that Rospotrebnadzor has now banned lodging unmarried people in one hotel room. The scoop is back! Shouted the restless, who remember that they really did not settle in the USSR. Meanwhile, the recommendations (!) Of the Rospotrebnadzor for the prevention of coronavirus infection (!!) say: "Accommodation of guests in a room is mainly single or family." And that’s it. No morale police. No "where necessary" messages. The simple hope is that family people will not infect each other if they have not infected each other before. And not a strict rule, but a recommendation.
The second case is the installation in Russian schools of an observation system called Orwell. They really will do it! Cried the restless, meaning not even the system itself as much as the name Orwell. And practically no one bothered to type “Orwell video surveillance system” in the search to find out about the 15-year existence of a commercial product with this name. Which, apparently, and are going to put in schools. And with disabled face recognition.
In general, the speed of the news generates a passionate (which is good), but inadequate (which is bad) reaction to this news. That's the thing when everything is thorough.
Recently, I told you how, working on one entertaining Internet project with the British corporation BBC in the late nineties, I stumbled on their website into a large set of rules that journalists should follow when covering certain events. It was prescribed there, for example, not to call terrorists terrorists, so as not to anger them, but to call them rebels. For the Russian, who considered almost everything in those years through the prism of Caucasian events, the recommendation looked somewhat wild. Although reasonable, since it was about the safety of other journalists in hot places.
And now we learn that there are few rules - the BBC hired a special person who would monitor the neutrality of the statements of the company's employees on social networks.
This is, I will explain, no longer about the professional activities of BBC journalists. No, it’s about their private life.
What is your family accommodation in rooms and a video surveillance system in schools. Here is the real Orwell! You cannot call a spade a spade (for example, terrorists, terrorists, and thugs pogroms) simply because you work for the BBC. Nowhere can you. Not in their own social networks. Nor, perhaps, even in their own kitchen (since the UK will give odds to any other country in the world, including China in the number of CCTV cameras).
True, a funny nuisance happened. It turned out that the hired special person (his name is Richard Sambrook) himself repeatedly wrote on Twitter that the authorities are trying to "block independent journalism and critical views." And you know what happened when it turned out? Several British politicians from the ruling party and even one minister said that this person cannot monitor the neutrality of BBC employees on social networks, since he himself shows bias.
Immediately the perfect unbiased referee appears - this is a gentleman who pronounces only “sir”. Not "yes sir." And, God forbid, no "no, sir." And just: "Sir." You yourself know what such a gentleman is called. He is called a butler. Some kind of Barrymore. And nothing more, a BBC employee can not afford. He is not supposed to.
True, it is not very clear how the use of the term “fighter with racial injustice” instead of “pogromist” fits into such a picture of the world. After all, this is also an assessment. And the BBC journalist should be extremely neutral. And his message that the “fighters against racial injustice” demolished another “racist statue” should look something like this: “People demolished another statue”. And that’s it. No explanation - what kind of people, why demolished, why the next. Clean and unclouded "Sir." But imagine how calm people will be after such news on British social networks! No reflection. No worries. And, as a result, no struggle against racial injustice. Since there will no longer be any racial injustice in the news. Remember ours: "The criminal has no nationality." That's about the same thing will happen.
However, life shows that there is no spherical news in a vacuum. And the criminal has a nationality. And white cops kill more black criminals simply because there are more black criminals.
Sir.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.