“Between ten hours of reporting and 140 words on Twitter, always tell the truth.” But what truth? A question to which the five young journalists awarded on Thursday, November 5th in Monaco, the “Mediterranean Journalist Award 2009” by the Anna Lindh Foundation, each responded in their own way. A reminder to the guests that journalism remains above all a human activity.
2009 Laureates, Ethar El Katatney (Egypt), Ennio Remondino (Italy), Martin Traxl (Austria), Chine Labbé (France), Alberto Arce (Spain), and Lisa Goldman (Israel) were brought together by the “Monaco Méditerranée Foundation,” an organization appointed by H.S.H. Prince Albert II to lead the Monegasque network of this Foundation, named after the Swedish Minister assassinated in 2003, and in charge of coordinating “a network of national networks” from countries around the Mediterranean. These networks in turn federate “several hundred civil and institutional organizations.” With a sole purpose: to promote “dialogue between cultures and respect for diversity.”
What can a journalist effectively do in the “promotion of diversity, dialogue, and a culture of peace in the Euro-Mediterranean region,” wondered in the preamble of this meeting, Andreu Claret, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation, and his colleague Jean Réveillon, Director-General of the European Broadcasting Union? A most uncertain task for this institution, expected to work within the fragile context of the political process of Barcelona launched in 1995 and reinforced in 2008 by the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean. Skillfully confined to ad hoc projects, the latter has yet to overcome tensions due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Is it then sufficient, as recommended by the Egyptian journalist and jury member Hala Hashish, to be “objective” and “observe the facts”? That would be forgetting an immutable law of social sciences that observing – and reporting – an event is not without effects on the event itself. Was not the Tian’anmen uprising triggered by the presence of hundreds of journalists invited to Beijing for another reason? The Egyptian director of satellite television stations can certainly deny “the existence of difficulties for the Arab population to access information.” An assertion notably questioned by several recent articles published in “Courrier International”: that of Noha Atef in Beirut’s “Al-Mustaqbal” or the one on “The obsession of Egyptian security services towards Moroccan Jews” by Magdi Khalil published in “Elaph.” “Elaph,” let’s note by the way, the first webzine in Arabic also awarded a “special mention” by the Anna Lindh Foundation jury.
A concern for objectivity that Israeli Lisa Goldman and Spaniard Alberto Arce interpreted more freely regarding their “papers” on the Israeli military operations in Gaza: the first experienced the “gap between opposing perceptions of this conflict,” expressing her feeling of being “divided between her Palestinian friends and her belonging to Israeli society.” “I had to decide,” she explains, acknowledging the repercussions on her immediate circle of her critical reflections on the “nature of media coverage, in her country, of Israeli operations in Gaza.”
Among the few journalists present on the ground during this conflict, the second found himself “caught between two propagandas.” To the point of taking pride in “having been expelled by Hamas and considered a threat by the Israeli security services”: “a possible indicator that I am doing my job well,” he exclaims. Illustrating his point with the example of the bombing of a Gaza hospital, which he called a “war crime,” Alberto Arce noted that “Hamas fighters were storing military equipment in the medical facility despite the hospital staff’s injunctions to leave the premises.” “Put all that in two hundred words, in less than two hours,” he challenged the audience as a lesson on the challenges of journalism. Can one indeed talk about immediate news – the life-and-death struggle between Hamas and Israel – without embedding it in the genesis of the conflict, the creation of the State of Israel, and its terrible founding reason, the Holocaust?
Should the journalist “also be a diplomat,” questioned a political science student? A very British answer from David Gardner of the “Financial Times,” for whom the correspondent must “represent the country and society” he is from “without becoming an Ambassador.” Considerable leeway at a time when reporters – just like businessmen – often preempt the content of diplomatic telegrams. Should he “also give answers,” asked another? “That is not the journalist’s role,” replied Lisa Goldman and Hala Hashish in unison. “His role is rather to ask questions,” quipped David Gardner.
While we may regret the absence of a deeper reflection focused on information itself, we ultimately take away from this too brief meeting, the sometimes involuntary, if not unconscious, reaffirmation of the subjective dimension inherent in the profession of journalism.
As the press, notably in France, faces strong turbulence, with “free” newspapers promoting news publication without a specific editorial line, leaving readers to their own reflections, while in some newscasts, a monotone voice can indistinctly announce the worst as well as the best, thus paving the way to relativism, if one dares say, the most absolute, at a time when the rapid transmission sometimes outweighs the analysis of the news, it was rather reassuring to hear, whether we share them or not, committed opinions, solid convictions coupled with perspective and deciphering of a subject. So many indicators that leave hope in the face of the general movement of “pasteurization” of information.
