“Journalism will change”: Timur Shafir, Vice President of IFJ, on fake news, censorship and pressure on Russian media

- Timur Vladimirovich, what could the appointment of her citizen to such a high international post for Russia mean?

- First of all, we will have the opportunity to more broadly cover issues related to Russian journalism, problems faced by our colleagues across the country: in Moscow, in Vladivostok, and in Kaliningrad, and in other regions. We will be able to cover situations related to pressure on our media abroad, including RT and Sputnik. All these situations will be under closer scrutiny. And the support of the international community in these situations will be quicker and more serious.

Through the IFJ, we will be able to convey information about these situations to a very wide range of stakeholders, organizations, media organizations, public and interstate organizations.

- The International Federation of Journalists has almost a century of history. What mission does the organization perform today, and what tasks should be prioritized for it?

- Yes, the International Federation of Journalists was formed in 1926. In fact, this is the only global global federation of journalistic unions, trade unions and organizations, the main statutory task of which is to protect the rights of journalists, social and economic.

• © Union of Journalists of Russia

This is her mission - protection and support. Because far from every country, not every union has the ability to cope with its own problems with those problems, with those challenges that time and the corresponding situations throw journalism. The international federation in this case is a kind of accumulation of all resources, of all possibilities from more than 160 countries.

The whole world, of course, is going through difficult times, including journalism. In a whole series of countries, and not only the “third world”, but also in a number of countries of fairly large, with centuries-old traditions, with relatively calm economic indicators, journalism is under a big blow. And one of the key tasks of the International Federation is to prevent professional journalistic associations from disappearing or disappearing in some regions. Because as soon as there is no trade union or union of journalists in the country, and this has already happened many times, journalists begin to experience many times greater difficulties. They practically do not have the structure that can protect them from problems and somehow support them.

- How developed are the trade unions of journalists in the world? Can they be an effective tool for upholding not only labor rights, but also freedom of the press?

- At the moment, in Western Europe and in other regions of the world, the journalistic trade union movement is under much greater pressure than it was, say, 15 or even 10 years ago. On the one hand, these are, of course, financial challenges, pressure from media owners, and confrontation with the authorities of countries, especially in problem regions. These are no longer hidden attempts at censorship and political pressure - including in countries that seem to be the stronghold of democracy and freedom. That is, on the one hand, the trade union movement is now experiencing difficulties, but on the other - it hardens it.

We see that trade union journalistic organizations that face this pressure directly share their experience with their colleagues and, despite this pressure, find ways to counter it.

• Correspondent RT Charlotte Dubensky.
• © RT

Alas, not in all countries the journalistic trade union movement withstood these blows of time. It is regrettable that, in particular, in a number of Eastern European countries the trade union journalistic movement has disappeared from the global scene and has ceased to be a member of the international movement.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia — a whole number of countries that 10 or 20 years ago believed that the “brave new world” would bring economic prosperity and freedom, including for journalists, found themselves in a situation where they could not resist, roughly speaking to foreign capital. Practically in all these countries, the media have been bought up by Western European publishing houses, which, despite their declared commitment to freedom of speech, do not like the trade union movement. And somewhere this movement has come to naught. But for the most part, as I said, the unions are now getting stronger.

- There is an opinion that recently the media is experiencing a crisis related to the availability and even an excess of content. How do you think journalism is in demand in the era of social networks?

- All the talk about the fact that journalism will cease to be in demand, will cease to play its role, reminiscent of the dialogue from the Soviet classic film "Moscow does not believe in tears." There was such a wonderful character who, with fire in his eyes, said that soon there would be no cinema, no theater, only one solid television. At that time, at the time of the film's action, television was practically the same as what we now have and new media, and social networks, and blogs, and everything else.

I do not agree with this. Yes, journalism will change, it will become more convergent. Naturally, new media will more and more enter our lives, but we are not saying that journalism is necessarily belonging to the print media. That is, we cannot associate journalism only with the newspaper strip.

And journalism as a profession, which involves, first of all, a serious study of the issue, analysis and conclusion, including, does not go anywhere.

Of course, today a huge flow of information - a huge number of blogs, social networks, new media, digital media. And there is a point of satiety, when at any moment any reader, any viewer in this stream of information does not just get confused, but gets tired of the huge amount of unverified, fake, empty information. And this is the moment when professional journalism, based on analysis, on verifying facts and, naturally, leading to some conclusions, will be in demand. This is my firm conviction.

Journalism as a profession, naturally, will change in form, will improve, become more digital, the form of presentation will change, a lot will change. But the essence will always remain the same.

- With the suggestion of Donald Trump, the term “fake news” has become widespread. What do you think about that? Has there been more such false news lately, or in fact, nothing has changed?

- Newspaper "ducks", fake news has always been a mass - even in those times when the first newspapers were carved on a stone in the ancient world. In Mesopotamia, for example, there were also concepts that can be associated with fake news.

Of course, there are more of them due to the fact that there are more sources of their distribution. Yes, this is a serious danger, but in the end, as they say in one classic work, people cannot lie forever. Any person, even the most distant from all global or local questions of being, sooner or later develops an internal filter, begins filtering the truth from untruths.

• An electronic billboard in Times Square in New York with the names of the American media that Trump accused of creating fake news
• globallookpress.com
• © Richard B. Levine / imago stock & people

But with fake news is not so simple. Literally, these days a big meeting should be held in Geneva, organized on the initiative of the Reporters Without Borders and the French government, if I'm not mistaken. An initiative platform will be created on it, which will define the concept of “fake news” and determine the criteria of trust in the media that spread this fake news.

We got acquainted with this initiative and came to the conclusion that, under the good pretext of countering fake news, criteria were introduced that would allow the media to gain the status of a propagandist. Guess who? For RT and for "Sputnik". And this is just one example. So the problem of fake news goes far beyond the distribution of newspaper "ducks" and false information.

- Can we say that the standards of journalism have changed in recent years?

- The standards of journalism have changed, first of all, technically - the speed with which information was presented, its brevity, and many other technical criteria began to come to the fore. This is an evolutionary process. Of course, it brings with it changes in the ethical standard - the content of the media and the content of the material prepared by the journalist.

It is the ethical factor that a decade ago was largely one of the key and decisive factors - “do no harm”, in our time it is beginning to fade into the background. And this is one of the issues that was also discussed at the current IFJ congress.

The International Federation of Journalists proposed a project called Global - The Global Charter of Journalist Ethics. His working version was adopted at the congress. It will become mandatory for the International Federation of Journalists and will be recommended to national unions of journalists for execution in their own region, in their own country.

Global implies a set of ethical standards for journalism that a journalist commits to abide by by joining his national union and thus becoming a member of the International Federation. At the regional level, in different countries there are some codes of conduct, norms, but there was no global unifying charter. This is quite an important step, which, of course, requires further development.

- According to your impressions, how do foreign journalists perceive Russian colleagues? Is there some kind of collective image of a Russian journalist abroad?

- This image is very different. Because a Russian journalist, perceived, say, by colleagues from Latin America, is an alternative point of view on global processes that affect their interests as well. The same perception of a Russian journalist in the Middle East region and in a number of others.

Western European colleagues perceive us a little differently. They try to hold for themselves a clear division into, as they like to say, propagandists and independent journalists. And here there is a division according to the principle of only black and only white. And this is what we are trying to fight.

• © RT

We consider it unacceptable, for example, that DJV - the German largest alliance - decides that it will not interact with RT and Sputnik correspondents in principle. Because they, in their opinion, are propagandists. Here, at the congress, this situation became the reason for a very big discussion. And we conveyed our point of view to our colleagues from around the world. This is a situation that is intentionally cultivated. Because in recent years, Russian journalists at the international level are quite serious competition to such already established blocks as, for example, Deutsche Welle, CNN and others.

- That is, we can talk about pressure on RT in a number of Western countries.

- And how can you not speak, if RT is trying to deprive the license in London, then they threaten with court in the States? In France, as I understand it, my colleagues have serious problems. Of course, there is direct pressure, and this is an obvious fact.

- Is it up to the standards of freedom of the press, freedom of speech?

- In my opinion, the standards of press freedom and freedom of speech in recent years have been more and more flouted by those who for decades held them over their heads, like banners. What we see now, happening not only around RT and the Russian media, is one of the most dangerous precedents in history both for Western freedom of speech and for general freedom of speech.

- Returning to the topic of Eastern Europe: in Ukraine, after euromaidan, as you know, serious problems began. Journalists Pavel Sheremet and Oles Buzin were killed, and Kirill Vyshinsky was arrested. It is known that the IFJ has already addressed Vyshinsky to Kiev. Was there any response, and are there any prospects at all to achieve justice in this matter, as you think?

- Justice always triumphs. Sooner or later, but always. With respect to everyone and everything. This is my belief. I am sure that justice in relation to Cyril will triumph necessarily. His situation is an obvious example of a prisoner of conscience, an example of a journalist subjected to reprisals just because he is performing his professional duty.

• Cyril Vyshinsky (second left) and his lawyer Andrei Domansky (left) at a meeting of the Podolsky District Court of Kiev
• RIA News

And I hope that this situation will be resolved soon enough. Because it is obviously odious, and it is clear to all. Not only to us, but also to the International Federation, and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. It is difficult to list all the structures that stood up for Cyril. But the Ukrainian leadership remains deaf - no response to requests, including the IFJ, no. However, this does not at all mean that the Union of Journalists of Russia, the International Federation and all our colleagues in Russia and abroad will stop working to free Cyril. This is not true. And I very much hope that we will soon see him free.

- What would you generally advise the Russian journalistic community about its problems that need to be addressed as a matter of priority?

- The problems of our journalistic community are basic, they are practically the same that exist all over the world. This is a social and economic status.

Because one of the key slogans of the International Federation states that there can be no free journalism if the journalist lives and works in conditions of poverty, corruption and threats.

And the first task is to strengthen the position of our journalists through the solution of financial and social status. It is a struggle to ensure that the work of a journalist is paid decently, so that a journalist can support his family, support himself. So he did not have to work at ten jobs to the detriment of professionalism. So that he can concentrate on his task and perform it professionally.

Social status is an increase in trust and respect for the journalist. And not only in situations where they are detained during rallies, but also in the domestic sphere. So that the journalist can get access to the official, so that those who have gone kind of bureaucrats do not throw him out of the office. So that he does not have to deal with the article of opposition to the professional activities of a journalist.

These are the first basic steps that are vital for the level of work of our colleagues to rise and they are protected.