Somehow, at a time when disguised journalists of major European houses were arrested by the Taliban for illegal entry into Afghanistan and for espionage, the small but ambitious Greek private television Tempo showed "world exclusive" footage from the war zone - real arms markets with child sellers, armed men on the streets , "suspicious cars", signs on the walls "calling for a rally", overloaded camels on winding paths that, of course, carry weapons to the Taliban's secret hideouts. And all of that abundantly "watered" with exciting war comments.
But it didn't last long. Ten days later, in the state TV NET program "Reportage without Borders", journalist Stelios Kuloglu pointed out details that did not quite fit into the Afghan landscape: men did not have the mandatory "Taliban" beards, women were not covered with blue "burqas", cars were not they drove on the right, not the left side of the road, they had Pakistani registrations, just like the signs on the Pepsi-Cola store were Pakistani, and the "graffiti" which turned out to be - advertisements, not political proclamations. The camels remained camels on the usual task of daily supply, as it also turned out that armed Pakistanis were quite a daily occurrence.
PROTECTION ETHICS: How much the next day, both sides were called to present evidence. For the first time in Greece, the entire system for the protection of journalistic ethics worked, and the state National Council for Radio and Television (ESR) was launched. As things stand now, the case will also reach the court, because TV Tempo accused Kuloglu of an immoral attack in the service of the power centers, and Kuloglu the station for the insults and slander that followed.
"It's no wonder that people don't react to obvious lies - because of their mentality, because they hesitate to confront the TV channels. Tempo belongs to a group that also has a radio station and a newspaper. Do you know what I'm exposed to? They insult me for two hours every day!" Kuloglu, an experienced reporter from Bosnia and Belgrade, says with a laugh for "Vreme". "I was calm at first, but I don't think I would have lasted if I wasn't completely sure of what I was saying."
And "obvious lies" have abounded in recent years, starting with archival footage being presented as live, through more or less directed war reports of the type "let's run a little" (Bosnia) or "shoot now" (Albania 1998), to a reporter from Baghdad (1999) who called from a Cypriot phone. All those cases reached the public and became the subject of journalistic polemics, but "relaxation" towards the facts and acceptance of what "everyone does" and against which, as a rule, few raise their voice prevails.
Effectively reacting to fabrications and unprofessionalism requires courage, a name "big enough" to withstand the pressure, the support of the parent house, as well as the arrangement - and functioning - of the institutional framework. And above all, the support of public opinion. However, the measures that can be taken in the conditions of the "frantic hunt for ratings are very limited, because the existing situation has consolidated", according to the president of ESIEA (Association of Journalists of the Athens Daily Press) Aristidis Manolakos.
The interlocutors of "Vremen" agree that the roots are in the thin and insufficiently organized journalistic "guild" on which the seven-year colonel's dictatorship (1967-1974) left a deep mark: on the one hand, by establishing a branched network of propaganda offices at all levels, and on the other, by developing mentality of compromise and self-censorship. Things got worse after the fall of the junta, because journalists-civil servants became intertwined with economic powerful people, or they got used to the secret funds of certain ministries.
"Many of those who matured as journalists during the dictatorship are now in management positions in the media," Kuloglu points out. "If there was a good journalistic tradition and some journalists who had a place to study took it over, things could have developed differently." But there was such a situation: lack of schools, lack of rules, burglary of private televisions since 1989, which has the result that some TV editors are worse than those from the time of the junta. They are younger, but they are worse."
CHANGES: The moment of great change is the one in which big capital began to enter the media market, from the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties: "It was the end of the romantic side of journalism, the old understandings of both publishers and journalists, and money and TV fame took over Kuloglu remembers the year 1989 when he left for a correspondent in Moscow: "I still believed that if I had a good story, it would be published." When I returned in 1993, I found myself faced with a terribly changed situation.” And he left the parent house.
Manolakos recalls that "RTV stations that received a broadcasting license at the end of the eighties, without a legal framework for it, began, due to competition in the small domestic market, a frantic hunt for viewership for advertising revenue."
At that stage, it was necessary to find journalists "who can do the job effectively." And, 'effective' means people without moral reservations, reckless…”. A few years later, in 1994–1995, when, says Kuloglu, "the first pleasure of having so many televisions passed, there was a certain dissatisfaction with their quality, the need to regulate the uncontrolled element." This caused the mood in journalistic circles to - finally, only in the second half of the XNUMXs - create a journalistic code. And the politicians themselves understood that this monster roaming the streets could 'bite them on the hand', which, together with public dissatisfaction, led to the formation of the ESR and stricter regulations against defamation in the mid-XNUMXs.
INSTITUTIONS I MENTALITY: ESR is responsible for issuing broadcasting licenses, for which, by law, it is also necessary that media owners fulfill their contractual obligations to employees, which RTV stations largely do not do. By not intervening, the ESR leaves room for pressure from the owners on the employees, due to which they are in constant fear for their jobs. One of the factors that could give journalists a sense of security to perform their work in accordance with ethics is the conclusion of collective agreements with private stations, such as exist with state ones. The second, Manolakos emphasizes, is to confirm ESIEA in the eyes of public opinion as an institution that tries to change the practice of unscrupulous journalism, and the third is the intervention of public opinion itself.
"But it cannot happen overnight," concludes Manolakos. Unlike him, Kuloglu believes that the key is not so much in the institutional framework that exists to a large extent, but in the fact that it is not implemented and that the "let it go, what does it matter" mentality prevails: "It is a mixture of letting go, feeling that everything is it does not make sense that the profession has been sold, laziness and lack of courage. We need to nurture the mentality, slowly, among young people as well."
The intervention brought Kuloglu into the focus of media attention and caused mixed reactions. In the restrained "front" of big TV companies that don't want to engage in mutual airing of dirty laundry, there was even a station that, according to some logic, would have an interest in attacking Tempo and its boss Nikos Evangelatos because he recently left it for a transfer from - as claimed - 200 million drachmas (one million and 148 thousand marks), and took his wife, a TV presenter, with him (for an unknown amount), in order to use a proven recipe raised Tempo ratings.
On the other hand, Kuloglu has massive support from colleagues and the audience: "You should see the e-mails I got! They stop me on the street, congratulate me. There are a lot of young people, journalists, who call me and want to work in my show 'Reportage without borders'."
Kuloglu won the first round: ESIEA issued a harsh statement according to which, after listening to both sides, "it was forced to point out that the specific subject, which was shown under the title 'In the shelters of the Taliban' and which the station called a 'world exclusive ', is an extreme attempt to impress the audience, a product of the 'yellow press' which, in the hunt for viewership, often abolishes the essence of journalistic work, exposes journalists and endangers information". When the Disciplinary Commission completes its part of the work, responsible journalists and editors are threatened with suspension or definitive exclusion from the ranks of ESIEA, and when the ESR committee studies the material, the media "culprit" is theoretically threatened with a fine of up to 500 million drachmas (about three million DEM) and even license revocation.
