Amateurs and professionals

The media storm I want to talk about was started, believe it or not - by meteorologists! After a civil lawsuit, we realized that weather forecasts in newspapers, on portals and TV channels are the work of meteorologists, but amateurs. The only official weather service is provided by the competent institution, the Republic Hydrometeorological Institute of Serbia, while other forecasts are the work of amateur meteorologists. They were less respected for their accuracy in predicting weather conditions, and they were criticized for their dramatic tone and form that attracted "clicks" from visitors to their platforms. This is how we reached the meteorological drama, where "bloody rain" is replaced by "icy day", with a mandatory recommendation on how to overcome sudden changes in temperature and avoid meteorological ailments.

Objectively speaking, the burden of guilt should not be borne exclusively by the authors of such content, the media that transmitted, published and additionally dramatized those forecasts are also to blame. Thanks to global digitization, you can follow the forecast on the Norwegian website intended for fishermen in the North Sea, just like the level of pollution in cities across Serbia. The difference is only in who uses that data and in what way it is presented. To put it very simply, meteorologists are like boxers. You have amateurs, professionals and you have media that only cares about the fight and much less about the titles and rules. That's why, recently, television stations have signed the authors of forecasts differently, probably in fear of a possible lawsuit from a viewer. This, completely unplanned, opened the question of identifying a huge number of "analysts", "experts" in the general profession, who we can relatively easily assume are hired to expose or support a certain political initiative or platform. These media lobbyists exist on all televisions and you can recognize them by appearing on the same shows at regular time intervals.

Let's face it, it is legal and legitimate for a certain TV channel to pay experts to regularly invite them as guests and speakers on certain topics. You can thus "reserve" political analysts, so ideally you have more of them from different parts of the political spectrum. When you sign them, it is desirable to emphasize their orientation, that is, their possible relationship to the authorities or a conflict of interest. Pro-government, opposition, academic, religious, but it should be emphasized if it is from the NGO sector, whether it is an organization funded by the EU, USA, Russia or someone else. Nobody disputes the expertise of such guests a priori, but the essence lies in their eventual bias. This, at least formally, lets the viewers know that the discussion or the views presented will still be colored by the personal views of the guests and will not represent the complete picture and all possible views on the topic.

Just imagine what kind of comedy would be created if this practice were to be implemented on all television stations in Serbia from tomorrow. Just imagine all those "experts" on Russia, security, the Middle East, elections, economics, energy, mining or medicine who would be signed by the director as "amateur doctor" or "security enthusiast" or "sports fan", "Russophile", " former American student" or "hobby politician".

It may seem funny to you, but every day we see dozens of "observers" who, with nothing but political suitability for a certain channel, are running for their opinion to be published like an amateur weather forecast. Of course, there is another level of mimicry to mask the amateurism of the interlocutor, and that is the costume of an "ordinary citizen" who are not members of political parties but express their personal opinion. There is a bizarre premise that this untainted "voice of the people" has a special weight and value because it is devoid of any influence from the media, politicians, social networks or the environment. It is, of course, a dangerous lie and illusion, like the interlocutor's statement that he "doesn't watch television" and has no accounts on social networks. Many such people are informed via the Internet from alternative sites and platforms, and there you have an army of anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers. As a rule, such consumers are even more susceptible to media manipulation because they know less about the nature and mechanisms of modern media manipulation.

You are told by amateurs about medicine, about global politics, the army, culture, economy, too, because often not even the relevant ministers have more than an amateur level of knowledge about their departments.

Unfortunately, similar amateurism is often seen on the side of criticism of the government, where the aforementioned angle of the "ordinary citizen" is preferred. Even if he is from the village, then in age, then in the first person, how would one of our hosts "fix the state" in a moment of work. On almost all important social topics, we almost never have the opportunity to hear the opinions of competent experts, and even less often a reasoned discussion. It may seem to you that this is the blathering of a media purist, but just ask yourself why you have not heard the opinions of experts on military conscription, armaments, the powers of the Community of Serbian Municipalities, the conditions for EU membership, the relationship with Palestine, Israel, Ukraine or Russia, or lithium mining . Amateurs will come at us, that's a very real fear.

Finally, an example of a slip of tongue by the host and editor of the Nova S morning program Nevena Madžarević, who instead of Leonardo da Vinci, as the author Gioconda mentioned Leonardo DiCaprio. The malicious yellow press used this funny gag for a political showdown with the opposition in headlines like "And they would lead Serbia!" I admit that I appreciate Neven's work since my student days, she is an authentic TV maniac, so I'm sure that without special preparation, she could give an hour-long lecture to the evil tabloids about both Leonardo da Vinci and Leonardo DiCaprio. The problem is only when malice does not distinguish or does not want to distinguish a slip from ignorance.