The head of the Union of Journalists of Russia Vladimir Solovyov spoke about the difficulties of the profession

– The congress of the Union of Journalists of Russia will be held very soon. Is there anything special expected on it?

– Yes. The main event and information feature of the congress is that four branches of the RJR are being created in new regions. It is very important. We were there, we held the forum “Journalism without borders” in Lugansk. Even the Ukrainians hit us with Tochka-U, it was shot down. We will definitely work with colleagues from new regions. We have big plans for the future.

– After the start of a special military operation, journalists often hear that they are on the information front line. Do you think this realization somehow changed the media workers themselves and their approaches to work?

“Journalists have always been people who wanted to collect information and convey it to society in the most truthful version. Everything that was once stated in the same Charter of Ethics for a Journalist, which we all adopted together at the 30th Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Tunisia. We collected information on this topic from all colleagues for a whole year. Both the basic postulates of Christianity and the postulates of journalism are unchanged in all ages. Only the way information is transmitted is changing. It is even hard to imagine, if our planet survives, what will happen in 10-20 years, what will be the options for transmitting information. Maybe we will exchange from brain to brain, through telepathy. Surely there will be incredible technical inventions, new formats will appear. But the task of the journalist will remain unchanged to collect information and truthfully convey it to the audience.

– Not just anyone, but our military correspondents were recently accused of lack of truthfulness. Telegram channels have hinted at the existence of certain blacklists of journalists who allegedly distort information about what is happening at the front. What could such an attack mean?

“I am aware of the situation with the military commanders. I myself was once a military commander. Those who are now working on the front lines are in many ways my friends. The same Zhenya Poddubny, Sasha Sladkov, Sasha Kots and many others. Colleagues work really heroically. Thank God, almost all of us are alive. Although Oleg Klokov, with whom we worked together on Channel One, recently died. I know about some of the contradictions that were between the Ministry of Defense and the military. I am a member of the Public Council of the Moscow Region and I can say this. It is very important that the president met with the three military commanders I named. Sladkov, Kots and Poddubny were present at this meeting. These guys can honestly say to their faces everything they see on earth. It is no coincidence that such a meeting took place. Although the president had little time. I think such meetings will be repeated, because it is important for Putin to know the view from this side as well. These guys don’t lie. I advised the generals to meet with the military correspondents and honestly, looking into each other’s eyes, to talk.

– They agreed? Did the meeting take place?

– I do not know. But after information about blacklists appeared in telegram channels, the topic quickly faded away. Perhaps they really met and talked. At least it is necessary to speak, to exchange opinions. This will help a lot. Colleagues see what is happening there, communicate with the military, see it all up close. This view is very necessary somewhere where such information does not reach. This is also part of the mission of military correspondents. The military correspondents really became the heroes of our time. I travel a lot around the country. Lately, a lot of guys and even girls have been constantly coming up to me, everyone is asking how to become a military correspondent. This romance of military journalism, it really is transmitted.

– It’s strange. A journalist who works, as the military says, “at zero”, risks his life and then still has to make excuses and prove that he said or wrote the truth. How so?

– Absolute truth in distilled form does not exist. It’s probably good. There is a view from where you are. I worked as a staff correspondent in Yugoslavia for many years. Then the whole world took up arms against Serbia. There was the so-called satanization of Serbia – the same thing that is happening with Russia now. Then I realized for myself that I can not always show two sides. I sometimes managed to interview Radavan Karadzic, and then, on the armored personnel carrier of our peacekeepers, cross the front line to the leader of the Bosnian Muslims and interview him in Sarajevo. It’s brilliant when you can show two sides, two military leaders. But such an opportunity was extremely rare. Therefore, I understood for myself what I can do in this situation: I can give a look from Belgrade – about how people live, what is happening, what is the economic situation, is there enough gasoline and food, how they imagine the future, how they fight. It is not always possible to present both points of view. Then you need to talk about what you see. What I see, I sing about. Our military correspondents have largely achieved this effect of presence.

– You said about the satanization of Serbia. Now the world has been swept by a wave of frenzied Russophobia. The world’s major media are waging an information war against us. Do we have a chance to win it?

– If we want to somehow influence the audience from the other side, then now it is almost impossible to do it even technically. All Russian channels are blocked. Although there are loopholes. I was told a funny story: in Oklahoma, RT is still on cable channels – they just forgot to turn it off. But it is not our task to convince their audience. Inquisitive people there, if they need to get to the bottom of the truth. Recently, a well-known American political scientist was indignant: “Why can’t I see Lavrov’s speech on an American TV channel in full? Why should I watch it through Al Jazeera? Or here are the telegram channels. Even those channels that were created by the Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations work freely for us. Now they are getting a lot of money to create new Telegram channels in order to undermine the situation with us. And in many Western countries, Russian and pro-Russian telegram channels are simply blocked. It seems to me that now attempts to influence that audience are meaningless and impossible. The main task is to influence our audience, to defend our point of view. And it seems to me that our journalism copes with this quite successfully. This can be seen in the indicators of trust in the president and support for the NWO. The task of Western propaganda is to sow panic and doubt. But they can’t do it.

– Have the moods of the readers and viewers changed after the start of the NWO? Who do they trust more now – bloggers or major media?

– Society has learned to verify information through professional media. Even during the covid, according to sociological surveys, the trust of the audience began to return to the media from publics in social networks, telegram channels and YouTube. You can throw anything in there without being responsible for the authenticity. Now the audience has begun to trust the professional media, and this trust must be maintained. Amazing things are happening: very young people who never knew what Channel One, Russia-1, the Vesti program was, they began to watch Kiselyov. He has a growing young audience, and not only him. Those who previously watched only TNT now began to watch Channel One and Russia-1. This trust must not be lost.

– Do you think it became easier to work after the media-foreign agents were turned off from the Russian information field? And do journalists now run the risk of being blacklisted by mistake?

– We have been doing a lot of foreign agents in the past years. Although they make up a tiny fraction of the total number of journalists, they are the noisiest, most aggressive and require some special treatment. We also worked to ensure that colleagues did not get into this list by mistake or stupidity, for example, for an accidental repost. We were engaged in legislative initiatives related to journalism, thanks to Alexander Khinshtein for this. We managed to make concessions in a number of laws. In particular, in all laws, at our request, the so-called right to make a mistake appeared. Reputation is a very important story in our business. If a person got into foreign agents by accident, then they remove him from there. But, I’m sorry, this will be remembered. Such information spreads instantly, like a fire in a dry forest. Everything that got on the Internet cannot be removed from there. Those who are worthy of this list – well, then, they are worthy. Some try hard to hit it and are proud if they hit it. But basically these are those colleagues who have long gone abroad and frankly sided with the enemy.

– Speaking of those who “blurted out of stupidity.” Recently, Anton Krasovsky distinguished himself with his wild statement about Ukrainian children. Then, however, he recorded a video with apologies, but they sounded like they were reading from a prompter. What to do with it now?

– What Krasovsky said is unacceptable from the point of view of human, or from the point of view of journalistic ethics. Of course, he played along very strongly with propaganda from the other side. There are now terrible screams, and this will continue for a very long time. This is an incredible failure. I rarely, but watched his interviews. Sometimes it was seen that a person goes on the air drunk in rags – and it comes out. I don’t think there is any editing or moderation. He himself posted the video on the Web. But there is also a burnout effect. After all, Krasovsky made very good films about AIDS, about covid, went to the “red zones”. And he went to the Donbass. But burnout brought a person to a terrible failure.

– Journalism is generally in the top of the most traumatic and harmful professions, according to WHO.

– Yes, it is harmful to health and family life. Generally for everything. But it is the most beautiful profession in the world.

— Are there any mechanisms to protect a journalist from burnout? It’s very important. We exist not for ourselves, but for our readers and viewers. By and large, “we are not there” – there is only our product and how the audience will perceive it. How to save yourself so as not to harm the reader?

– In some old movie there was a phrase: “a musician has bare nerves on his fingers.” Journalists are most often really emotional people, they perceive reality very sensitively. These are the eyes and ears of society, all the senses that must perceive that something is wrong and report it. Talented journalists always have a heightened perception. Of course, this is a blow to health, to emotions, to personal life – everything. A journalist is his text or video and most often a short life. We, as a public organization, are trying to do things in such a way as to put all these feelings in order. A psychologist was always present at the Central House of Journalists, who could receive a person for free, talk – this is very important. We bring a psychologist to all our forums who tells how not to burn out.

— I know that the UJR also launched self-defense courses for journalists.

Yes, there are such courses. We also had others, by analogy with the Bastion courses, which are conducted by the Union of Journalists of Moscow. At the Ministry of Emergency Situations training ground in Noginsk, experts taught journalists how to behave in an emergency situation. They almost threw them under the tank. We will continue this format, now it is very important and relevant. And self-defense courses were offered by Sergei Kiriyenko. He is a martial artist. When I told him that we were preparing colleagues for work in combat conditions, he suggested creating self-defense courses and brought us together with the Martial Arts Association. It is incredibly popular, especially among girls. Because they teach how to use any object – even with a pen, even with a rolled-up newspaper – if a person shows increased interest in you, poke in such a place that interest immediately disappears.

– According to your observations, media workers are now drawn to the SZHR? Is membership in the Union valuable to them?

– The authority of the Union has risen very strongly. In five years, 6,800 people joined the SZHR. It is very important that young people join. The union has become fashionable for young people. Our crust is becoming more weighty. And in covid, it came in handy, by the way, to go out and work. It already, in fact, replaces a journalistic ID. We have a huge number of preferences: discounts in sanatoriums and so on. Of course, this is a separate issue. It is very important that we managed to achieve a lot of what the community was waiting for. For example, the title of “Honored Journalist of Russia”, many things for war correspondents. We have made 50 educational forums. The SZHR Relief Fund helps the relatives of deceased colleagues. Very important work has been done over the years.