SMirotvorets – from the word “peace”

Creator of a Russian media competition about difficulties and victories

“SMIrotvorets” – an all-Russian competition of media workers for the best coverage of interethnic and ethno-confessional relations – this year celebrates its 15th anniversary. This is the third year that the competition has accepted works from representatives of not only official media, but also the blogosphere. Now such a large-scale competition among the writing fraternity is being held by the Federal Agency for National Affairs as part of the implementation of the Russian state program on nationality policy. And we asked about the competition the person who came up with it in 2008 and brought it to life.

Margarita Lyange is the president of the Guild of Interethnic Journalism, on whose initiative SMIrotvorets was created and with whose support it has already brought a lot of wise and useful information to the domestic information field.

Today, the creator of one of the largest competitions for the press is the responsible person for a number of important projects, a member of the Public Chamber of Russia and the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Interethnic Relations. And initially Margarita was a journalist who was the first to understand that the Russian media sphere needs a tool with which to reach an agreement with both the authorities and readers. After all, in such a multinational state as Russia, as in any large family, there will always be problems – not big, but small. Another question is whether there is a wise family member who is ready to take on the work and responsibility of reconciling the parties before their minor domestic dispute escalates into a major quarrel. In the “family” of domestic media, such a member was the “SMIrotvorets” invented by Margarita Lyange.

“The idea of ​​the competition appeared when everyone blamed each other for inciting interethnic problems,” says Margarita. – And both the authorities and the readers blamed the journalists. Journalists, in turn, blamed the authorities. It was necessary to seek consensus and develop a common coordinate system for all parties.

15 years ago, by the time the idea of ​​the competition was realized, Margarita Lyange already had solid experience in working with interethnic themes – for more than 10 years she hosted the only program at that time on the federal radio air about the peoples of Russia. And also as the author of scientific publications on the topics of information policy in a multi-ethnic state, the fight against xenophobia and ethnic extremism in the media. The professional community immediately appreciated the resource of such an annual event as a competition and supported it. Today “SMIrotvorets” has state support, and most importantly, it unites like-minded people who are deeply immersed in the topic of “internationalism.”

“Everyone needs friendship of peoples, but no one “buys” it,” says Margarita Lyange about her non-advertising-intensive brainchild. – The topic of interethnic relations, and even more so the difficulties in them, does not attract advertisers, which means it is not monetized, bringing no money to either the media or bloggers. That is, the authors working in it are from the “I can’t be silent” series, or, in other words, enthusiasts. As part of the competition, we monitor the entire Russian media space and the slightest changes in the media atmosphere, and this is colossal and multi-level work. Our media creators not only work in traditional media, make podcasts, run social networks of the media in which they work, but also their personal blogs – and often all this at the same time. Such all-rounders deserve the highest awards.

The expert council of the XV All-Russian competition “Mass Media Creator” reviewed more than 10 thousand competition materials received from all 89 federal districts of Russia. 1058 media took part in it, 136 media outlets and blogs were shortlisted. Next week, the winners of the competition will be announced in eight categories – “Television”, “Print”, “Internet”, “Ethnosound”, “Children’s and youth media”, “Blogs”, “Generation of multimedia” (for students of specialized faculties of universities) and “Mentors and Traditions.” The last nomination is dedicated to the outgoing Year of the Teacher and Mentor. 35 finalists will receive prizes from the competition, the title of which clearly includes the word “peace.” And this is so relevant now! So, speaking about the difficulties of today, the author of the idea for the competition mentioned the return of the forgotten “hate speech” – a harsh, generalizing and generally negative style of presenting texts on interethnic topics.

“This is noticeable only on a large array of materials, as in our case with more than 10 thousand works from more than a thousand publications plus bloggers,” Margarita Lyange clarifies. – The trend towards branding and labeling came from abroad and is spreading like a virus. In this situation, we are obliged to remain in the tradition of domestic journalism, where the main thing is mutual respect.

In recent years, the competition has grown noticeably both qualitatively and quantitatively, while becoming younger due to bloggers and young journalists who have become interested in a difficult topic. And interethnic journalism is now taught in 15 leading specialized universities in the country. The plans of the unique Russian competition “peacemakers with a pen” are to enter the Eurasian expanses and become an international competition of journalists promoting the ideas of peace, harmony and mutual understanding between peoples.