Euro is
going to crash, the Greeks are going to sink Europe, world is coming to an end.
Media
has been screaming for a disaster for years now. Euro has been predicted to
fall and crash, and take every euro-zone country with it (and maybe even the rest of the world). However euro is still
much stronger than dollar or the British pound. Yes, it has come down from its
highest – 1.46 against a dollar, now 1.22 – but it still hasn’t sunk
completely.
Greece
is in great trouble, same with Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Italy is to follow,
and number of other countries. Unless we do something dramatic, we are all
going to die.
This is pretty
much the message that media is sending out. Well, they are only repeating what
policymakers or specialists are saying. Maybe so, but media decides how to
title, how to quote and how to analyze. Yet it seems everyone is just repeating
everyone – media is going around in circles, because nobody dares to claim
something different.
I’m part
of media. Journalism has been
my passion as long as I can remember, but I’m starting to question whether
newspapers, magazines, online editions etc. actually know why they were originally founded.
Wikipedia
describes journalism as “investigation and reporting of events, issues and
trends to broad audiences”. Investigation. That’s the key word. Not only
reporting, but investigating. Analyzing. Explaining. Not only telling people
what is going on but letting them know why and how. And repeating what some
economist or politician has said about why and how is not it!
I’m
starting to wonder whether I am only part of the problem myself. Does journalism
even exist? Or is journalism, at the end, only entertainment? Maybe it’s
impossible to be completely objective. Maybe it’s impossible not to have an
agenda. Maybe I’m naive thinking journalism could make a difference – a difference
that is not driven by selfish agenda, but by the good of the people, truth and
justice.
Or maybe I’m
just used to having things quite well. Finnish freedom of the press and freedom
of speech is often praised around the world. This is sadly only half the truth;
yes we have free press, but what do we do with our freedom? We follow the
cycle. We repeat the same things over and over again. Read one newspaper and
you have read them all.
Finnish
journalists don’t specialize. They don’t investigate (checking Wikipedia does
not count. And yes I know I used Wikipedia myself for this post). They don’t
analyze, because they do not have the abilities or knowledge to do so. In
United States, for example, a journalist can be so professional in his field
that is often asked to speak as an expert on the issue. That would never
happen in Finland – at least not with my generation of journalists.
I worry
for the quality of Finnish journalism. Finnish press has never been as free as
now, yet it has never been as disappointing. Nothing I read in the paper can
surprise me anymore. It’s all the same.
- People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.
Lewis H. Lapham
