LUNCHEON HOSTED BY CEGOS A good story can change the way we see the world… FRIDAY 12 OCTOBER 2007
Journalists in the West go to foreign countries and report on people and events, but they can never be objective, said Russian Tania Rakhmanova. Often they chose to interview people who speak their own language and tended to interview people whose views coincided with theirs. Rakhmanova said it would be better if TV stations used reports compiled by local journalists since they would probably not tell their stories in the same way as Western journalists and film-makers. “It’s important to give opportunities to local people and let them say what’s important in their lives”, she stressed. “For example, I have never seen a piece made by an Iraqi on Western TV channels”. The Internet could help bring in local opinions and reactions to events, because it was cheap, many people had small cameras and it was easy to upload pictures onto the web. Nevertheless, Rakhmanova said she was sceptical about the Net’s usefulness in increasing the diversity of news sources. She doubted whether the public was prepared to spend time looking for local news and reports from distant countries, especially when so many would be in a foreign language might be of relatively poor quality. Another problem of reporting foreign stories was the falling demand from editors. Essentially, TV was an entertainment medium, based on emotions, she stressed. She quoted British journalist Andrew Marr’s recent book, in which he said news was the gap between advertising breaks and people expected it to be entertaining. “It’s dangerous to have only emotions, without facts and context”, she warned. In addition, editors who commissioned programmes increasingly demanded films and stories on home affairs and that were “fronted” by a well-known presenter. Rakhmanova told the luncheon guests that her professional choice was to make documentary films because “a documentary gives you a chance to tell a longer story.” The topics of her films have included AIDS in India, President Putin’s rise to power and a history of political spin. She urged the organisers of the Women’s Forum to screen of TV programmes about women around the world. On women and the media, she said the TV business was full of women – though usually not at the most senior levels – and that women were better at telling good, and true, stories. “They are less worried about their image and appearing strong. And they are more interested in details,” she said. Because of the lack of women in positions of power, documentaries often contained few interviews with women. For this reason, she said, her film on Putin featured only one woman – his head of campaigning. Rakhmanova admitted she was nervous about the power of the media, a point she illustrated with an anecdote about President Putin telling a prominent TV interviewer: “Our people don’t know the truth – they only know what you show on TV.” _________________________ |