For ten years, from Monday to Thursday, on Radio Television Vojvodina The show "Pravi ugao" edited and hosted by Ljubica Gojgić is broadcast. Expressed in numbers, it is more than 1500 editions of conversations with relevant guests on current topics.
In many respects, this is a show that escapes labels, prejudices and divisions in Serbian media scene. It is unique, almost endemic, because it persistently resists all the challenges and deviations of our journalism. As a regular viewer, I will naively try to "measure" that right angle, which for ten years has unerringly pointed north like a compass and helps us to orient ourselves in the desert and rainforest of media and political everyday life.
The title of the show is not only symbolic. He talks about that precision of analysis, in contrast to the everyday, decades-long distortion of a society in transition. Our political scene and public space are full of populism, conformity, with the loss of clear ethical, political and democratic standards. The world of anomie and crisis is fluid, inconsistent, broken and bumpy, so perhaps it is most accurate to say that it is unprincipled and contradictory. "The Right Angle" is here to find out whether the change of direction, attitudes, opinions, programs and coalitions is a consequence of natural development and adaptation to reality, under the influence of new ideas and facts, or, which is incomparably more often, a consequence of the daily political and Machiavellian struggle for power and authority.
"Right angle" therefore cannot be an association for a lack dialogue, dullness of any kind or the inability to understand another and different opinion, but on the contrary, means a constant search for different views and attitudes, the intersection of which leads to finding the "right angle" of observing and understanding the world around us.
"The right angle" even though it has the singular in the title, does not imply that there is only one view of things, only one interpretation that claims absolute truth, but implies the existence of several angles of observation. Developmental psychologists recognize this ability in the cognitive development of children, approximately preschool age, when the so-called "conceptual thinking". It, among other things, implies the beginning of empathy and overcoming the egocentrism of thinking during which the child is the center of the universe. Unfortunately, "The Right Angle" has been showing for a whole decade that this egocentrism is very widespread on our political scene, moreover, it is considered a desirable sign that that Someone is always and in everything right, without the ability to listen or face a different opinion. Unfortunately, in the past ten years, we have seen many times in this show how Ljubica Gojgić asks questions that citizens would like to ask, and those questions remain without real answers.
If you look and listen more carefully, Ljubica Gojgić actually asks her guests on our behalf, without having to use the egocentric phrases of insecure journalists who often use the terms "I", "my show", "my question" and the like. All her guests know where they have come and with whom they are talking, and they know that there is no one sitting on the other side who will want to "destroy" or "humiliate" them, but your every smart word will reach the viewers, and the stupid ones even sooner.
Another rare quality that Ljubica has is the ability to treat every interlocutor with respect, without bias or cheering, regardless of religious, political, national or any other orientation, which frustrates those who would like to classify her in one of the local "camps". So for decades, as long as I know her and follow her work, I have listened to nonsense about what Ljubica actually thinks, about the left and the right, the Russians and the Americans, the Hague, the NATO pact, the authorities and the opposition and who she works for. As far as I know her, she worked for B92 and RTV. Ljubica is an excellent journalist, a top professional whose work is recognized and rewarded, and it is no coincidence that she is a Knight of the Legion of Honor. If there is bias and open sympathy with Ljubica, she always shows it chivalrously when she asks into the minds of the weak, humiliated and disenfranchised, whose voice is the least heard and the quietest in our society. This is the meaning of "Right Angle", in times where between black and white, one lives in countless and murky shades of gray.
It is particularly interesting that for ten years RTV, as the provincial Public Media Service, has been broadcasting a program that goes beyond the scope of Vojvodina and deals not only with Serbia but also with this part of Europe. Interlocutors from the entire political spectrum were always invited to this show, except for those who spread hatred (religious, political, racial or any other), and this is unusually important, because even representatives of the government, accustomed to media that are pure political propaganda, have to explain their views and listen to a different opinion in "Prava uglo". The show encountered obstructions both from the authorities and from the opposition, which was also sometimes not ready to publicly articulate and explain its views, accustomed to its media that will praise them uncritically and unconditionally. In that media and political gap, "Pravi uago" is not an alibi for RTV, but its best part. It will never be clear to me why, after Vojvodina dnevnik, from Monday to Thursday, this show is not broadcast on RTS, but is replaced by the charade about political life, "What are you doing, bro?".
Well, that's the difference between two views on politics in the media in Serbia - one from the corner of the "Bre" cafe table, which, it seems to me, is the dominant discourse, and the reasoned conversation of competent interlocutors in "The Right Corner". That's why it's extremely important to save that protractor. Good luck, Love!
