Just what is shown in the media. Why does the media feed us only bad news? Are we to blame or are they? Infotainment vs realpolitik

When you read the news, sometimes it seems that the press only covers tragic, unpleasant or sad events. Why does the media focus on life's troubles and not on positive things? And how does this preponderance towards the negative characterize us - readers, listeners and viewers?

It's not that there are nothing else but bad things to happen. Perhaps journalists are more attracted to their coverage because a sudden catastrophe looks more attractive in the news than the slow development of a situation. Or maybe editors believe that shameless reporting on corrupt politicians or coverage of unpleasant events is easier to produce.

However, it is likely that we, readers and viewers, have simply trained journalists to pay more attention to such news. Many people say they would rather have good news, but is that really true?

To test this theory, researchers Mark Trussler and Stuart Soroka conducted an experiment at McGill University in Canada. According to scientists, previous studies of how people react to news were not entirely accurate. Either the course of the experiment was not sufficiently controlled (for example, the subjects were allowed to view the news from home - in such a situation it is not always clear who exactly in the family uses the computer), or too artificial conditions were created (people were invited to select news stories in the laboratory, where each participant knew: the experimenter carefully monitors his choice).

So Canadian researchers decided to try a new strategy: misleading their subjects.

Trick question

Trussler and Soroka invited volunteers from their university to come to the laboratory for an “eye movement study.” First, subjects were asked to select several political stories from a news site so that the camera could capture some “basic” eye movements. The volunteers were told that it was important to read the notes to get accurate measurements, but what exactly they read did not matter.

Maybe we like bad news? But why?

After the “preparation” phase, participants watched a short video clip (which they were told was the point of the study, but was actually just a distraction) and then answered questions about what kind of political news they wanted read.

The results of the experiment (as well as the most popular notes) turned out to be quite gloomy. Participants often chose negative stories—about corruption, failure, hypocrisy, and so on—instead of neutral or positive stories. Those with a general interest in current events and politics were especially likely to read bad news.

However, when asked directly, these people said they preferred good news. Typically, they said that the press paid too much attention to negative events.

Reaction to danger

The researchers present their experiment as conclusive evidence of so-called negativity bias, a psychological term that refers to our collective desire to hear and remember bad news.

According to their theory, it's not just about gloating, but also about evolution, which has taught us to quickly respond to a potential threat. Bad news can be a signal that we need to change our behavior to avoid danger.

As you would expect from this theory, there is evidence that people respond more quickly to negative words. In a laboratory experiment, try showing a subject the words “cancer,” “bomb,” or “war,” and he will press a button in response faster than if the screen said “baby,” “smile,” or “joy” (although these are pleasant words are used a little more often). We recognize negative words faster than positive ones, and can even predict that a word will be unpleasant before we even know what it is.

So is our alertness to potential threat the only explanation for our addiction to bad news? Probably no.

Another interpretation of Trussler and Soroka's findings is that we pay attention to bad news because we generally tend to idealize what's happening in the world. When it comes to our own lives, most of us think we are better than others and, according to a common cliché, we expect everything to work out well in the end. Such a rosy perception of reality leads to the fact that bad news comes as a surprise to us and we attach more importance to it. Dark spots, as you know, are noticeable only against a light background.

It turns out that the nature of our fascination with bad news can be explained not only by the cynicism of journalists or our internal desire for negativity. The reason may also be our ineradicable idealism.

On days when the news is not very good, this thought gives me hope that all is not lost for humanity.

Every year the list of “banned” journalists grows. Nowadays you can break the law without even knowing it; you just need to publish a photo from social networks or indicate the popular name of a particular monument. The good news: most likely, violators will only be issued a fine. But there is also a bad thing: if you don’t learn from your own mistakes and step on the same rake three times, Roskomnadzor may close the media. Primorskaya Gazeta looked into what should not be published on the pages of newspapers and on the Internet.

BY THE WAY

Seminar “Legal regulation in the media industry” Experts and speakers: representatives of the Roskomnadzor Office for the Primorsky Territory, the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service for the Primorsky Territory. Moderator: Galina Antonets, media lawyer. Auditorium 501 FEFU. June 9 from 12.30 to 14.00.

Prohibited: writing about children without the consent of their legal representatives

The requirements of Russian legislation are now extremely harsh: the right to privacy, protection of personal data, the right to image, protection of minors...

As Primorye media lawyer, lawyer Galina Antonets says, when you look at seminars about what the law allows you to write about, it turns out that you can’t write anything - or you have to build a defensive wall from a pile of papers.

Consider, for example, the situation with the publication of a photograph of a child in the media. Here, both the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Civil Code are unanimous: publication of photographs is possible only with the permission of the person himself or, if we are talking about a minor, with the permission of his parents or legal representatives. However, there is one exception.

If a child is missing, then you can publish his photograph without permission, since this case falls under the clause of the law on the use of the image in state, public or other public interests, says Galina Antonets.

But as soon as the child is found, and, pardon the cynicism, alive or dead, the publication of any image is prohibited. Only if there is permission from parents, legal representatives and the hero of the publication himself.

Prohibited: writing about suicide and describing the method

It is even more difficult to talk about tragedies when it comes to child suicide.

Now the media only has the right to write that a certain girl committed suicide, without disclosing either the method (this is regarded as incitement) or the name, without the written consent of one of the parents. It is prohibited to post photographs, even those posted on social networks,” noted Galina Antonets.

So far, the expert says, it is difficult to create a single clear algorithm for how to write about suicide correctly, without breaking the law. The supervisory authorities have a clear opinion on this matter - it’s impossible, almost impossible at all.

Well-known media lawyer Galina Arapova is scheduled to come to the Media Summit. She promised to tell us about innovations on this particular topic, and I will also be happy to listen to her,” noted Galina Antonets.

Prohibited: displaying images of public figures

According to the law, it is impossible to publish a photograph of a person without his consent. From this general rule there are three main exceptions. The first is if you use a person’s image in the state, public interests. But this interest will have to be proven every time a dispute arises. You can use images taken in a public place, at an event, but there is a very important and significant limitation: the person depicted in the photograph should not be the main subject of the image.

If the image can be classified as “story” then there are no restrictions. That is, it is clear that this person was not photographed purposefully, that there is still some action around him, that he is part of the composition, and so on. But if you crop the picture even a little, so that the person becomes the center of the image, then it becomes a portrait and can only be posted with permission,” notes Galina Antonets.

You need to be equally sensitive to photographs posted on social networks. That is, if their publication is reposted, then there is no violation. And if the image is simply saved and posted, then you can safely go to court and demand removal and compensation for moral damages.

Prohibited: showing scenes of smoking without warning

Another complex and controversial topic is the demonstration of smoking, says Galina Antonets.

If we are talking about broadcasting films or newsreels containing scenes of smoking, the media must necessarily precede the broadcast with a special warning.

Newspapers and news agencies do not have the right to publish photographs of people smoking - violation is punishable by a fine.

In 2016, one of the regional media outlets was punished with a very large fine for broadcasting a war newsreel in which a man was seen holding a cigarette. This was the norm at the time, but the media did not include a warning that the material “contains smoking scenes.” For a small regional media outlet, a fine of more than 100 thousand rubles is a lot of money.

Prohibited: writing about banned organizations without mentioning their “banned status” in Russia

There are currently 25 terrorist and 47 extremist organizations in Russia. The full list is posted on the FSB website: www.fsb.ru/fsb/npd.

The difficulty of working with this topic is that there is no clear definition of what “extremism” is. But the law clearly states what awaits violators if any violations are committed. This is both a significant fine and the closure of the media.

Extremism can also be a characteristic image of a Slavic symbol. Let’s say a journalist goes to cover a holiday in honor of Ivan Kupala, we like to organize such “return to origins” on this day. Naturally, the organizers of the event actively use runic symbolism. So, it’s enough to change the color a little or show only one symbol - and such a publication can already be interpreted as extremist, says Galina Antonets.

In addition, the media lawyer reminds, you cannot write about organizations on the list without indicating that their activities are prohibited in Russia.

This point strictly applies only to extremist organizations. Information that they are prohibited must be in the material: in brackets, notes - in any form. Regarding terrorists, there is no such strict ban, and here everything remains, as they say, on the conscience of the journalist,” the expert notes.

Prohibited: disrespect for monuments, symbols and other objects of military glory

As the expert says, “the question is with history.” A precedent arose when one of the journalists from the Syktyvkar news agency asked the famous Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov if he knew which monument the locals called “Women Frying a Crocodile.” The material with this popular title was published, and one of the local residents saw it as an insult to the symbol of military glory and filed a lawsuit. The plaintiff’s arguments turned out to be convincing, and the publication was fined 200 thousand rubles.

So, if journalists decide to mention any popular names of monuments, they may well be charged with insulting symbols. In general, you need to be extremely careful with this point,” says Galina Antonets.

By the way, the now extremely popular law on insulting the feelings of believers works according to the same mechanism. The subtlety here is that all judicial proceedings on such charges are based not on the fact of the insult itself, but on the demonstration of such an act.

For example, a girl lit a cigarette from a church candle and posted a photo on a social network. She will be held accountable not for the fact that she smoked in church, but for the fact that she demonstrated,” notes Galina Antonets.

Against the backdrop of a general increase in media noise and an increase in the speed of information delivery, many publications have relied on short and catchy texts. The minority continues to work the old fashioned way, in the genre of big stories.

Proponents of the clip format proceed from the assumption that the average reader is not able to perceive and analyze large volumes of information, or follow the author’s thoughts and logic. This assumption is partly based on sociological surveys, partly on the personal opinion of the editors-in-chief, and partly even on statements by psychologists who diagnose modern man widespread attention deficit disorder.

The increase in noise and speed of information flow occurred in the world gradually - with the change in television formats, the emergence of the video clip as a genre, the advent of computers, and finally, the Internet. In Russia, the concept of clip thinking, as opposed to linear, arose in the mid-nineties.

Trying to adapt to the new, video generation, most domestic media came up with an important commandment: don’t overload. Whoever burdens the reader loses. Result: dictatorship of “funny pictures” (form prevails over content), an abundance of short and fractional texts.

The text, more like a slogan, and, as a side effect, scandalousness is another important consequence of the clip approach. Increasing the volume (and what else can you do in the “noise” - just scream) and catchiness of statements up to exceeding the threshold of reader sensitivity.

A recent example is the column of the famous writer and journalist Zakhar Prilepin “Letter to Comrade Stalin,” after which the author was indignantly branded (or happily proclaimed) a Stalinist and anti-Semite. Every sentence here is a slogan and a cry: “We sold the ice drifts and nuclear-powered ships you pledged and bought ourselves yachts”; “You put Russian people in seven layers to save the life of our seed.”

But one cannot judge a person’s beliefs by slogans and cries; one cannot reason with slogans and cries. However, neither the reader nor the author takes this into account, and radical slogans on both sides, multiplied and spread by the information flow, remain the only arguments in the dispute.

There is an apocrypha that Leo Tolstoy was once asked to briefly retell Anna Karenina. In response, he handed the book to his interlocutors: “That’s all I can say briefly. If I could take one word out of here, I would.”

Journalistic big stories are somewhat like books: they cannot be broken down into more accessible “pixels.” And, like paper books, it’s not the first year or even the first decade that they have been predicted to die soon. And they all live.

Yes, the reader’s perception has changed due to information oversaturation, but we should not submit to this, says Mukhamed Kabardov, Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of General Psychology at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. - People have not yet degenerated so much that it is impossible to speak to them in long, intelligent texts. The reader can still handle eight pages of sequential text. The only question is whether he wants to. And here the most important thing is not the size of the text. Do you know that in the twenties the language of the Red Army soldiers or, for example, the language of village children was specially studied - so that it would be clear how exactly to speak to such an audience? The most important thing now is the ability of journalists to address their readers in a targeted manner.

The history of the Ogonyok magazine is indicative here. The famous media manager Leonid Bershidsky tried to reform it in a clip style, focusing on the abstract, successful and active reader who does not have time to read long texts. The active and busy Ogonyok did not read it, but the readers, accustomed to the traditional narrative and detailed stories, naturally turned away from the magazine. I had to play it back.

There are always and always will be people - both here and in the West - who are sickened by flickering and pixelation, who want to get a complete and coherent picture of an event, a country, a world. In this sense, “Russian Reporter” is a typical example of successful trend resistance: our readers easily perceive complex multi-page texts.

Multimediaization vs traditionalism

Newspapers and television in their traditional form are being replaced by new multimedia products.

There has been talk for a long time that newspapers, magazines and television in their current form will die sooner or later. At the end of the 2000s, newspaper circulation in the United States fell by about 7-10% annually. People preferred to read newspapers and magazines on the Internet. Various options were tried: some media outlets introduced paid access to materials on the site, and sent out the latest issue to subscribers in pdf format. You can now subscribe to many newspapers and magazines for iPad and Amazon Kindle versions.

At the same time, the same Internet began to breathe down the back of television. As a result, traditional media faced an important question: how to continue making money? The process of developing new formats continues. Back in the first half of the 2000s, it became clear that newspapers and magazines should become multimedia, and the border between paper and electronic media should gradually blur. And the point is not that the newspaper will be read, and TV will be watched from the screen of a computer or tablet. And the fact is that it will be a new product with text, video and pictures. Since the mid-2000s, paper media websites have offered options that are not possible on paper: video reports, video blogs and video columns.

The first experiments were not the most successful: “newspaper and magazine television” was frankly amateurish. But gradually the situation began to improve. Large information holdings like NewsCorp have all types of media in their portfolio, and the Internet pages of newspapers of such large corporations are the same multimedia products that, in addition to text, contain video, audio and photo content. In Russia, LifeNews and Komsomolskaya Pravda operate according to a similar scheme. The tabloids are now in the forefront; serious media are still lagging behind.

At the same time, a completely new format of journalism is developing - independent video blogs. Most often these are entertainment reviews like the American “=3” or the Russian equivalent “+100500”. Vloggers (the English vlogger has not yet taken root in Russia) make programs on a variety of topics: from teaching physics and astronomy to computer games and fashion. Some vlogger projects are becoming a normal business: Youtube shares part of the advertising revenue with the most popular authors.

Another direction of multimediaization is the creation of special content for tablets. The appearance of the first iPad was hailed by the media world as the salvation of a dying industry - many hoped that the traditional subscription would be revived through iTunes. As a result, after the release of the iPad, newspaper circulation continued to fall, although some publications successfully sell electronic versions of their issues. However, the development of a format that would be optimally suited for tablet computers is still ongoing.

Deprofessionalization vs elitism

In the good old days, professional journalists had a monopoly on receiving and distributing information. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television received information from correspondents and whistleblowers, had in-house experts analyze it with exclusive access to editorial archives, and then disseminated the information through their own channels.

The common man could neither receive nor distribute information. The journalist acted as an intermediary between him and the information. The advent of the Internet, then social networks, as well as progress in telecommunications, turned the world upside down.

Hand-made journalism was born almost simultaneously with social networks - at the very end of the 90s. As the Internet and electronics developed, it invaded the world of a wide variety of media. This includes the primary collection of information, its analysis (experts sitting in the editorial office and analysts who do not leave their homes have the same opportunities - searching on the Internet), and even the publication of independent online newspapers and magazines. Such projects are called “civic journalism.”

One of the first examples of “civil media” was the indymedia.org project, which appeared in 1999 to provide information support for anti-globalization projects. And civil media showed their true power in 2011, when, thanks to them, riots began in the Arab world, and the Occupy movement began in the United States and Western Europe.

Actually, now any blog, Facebook or Twitter account can be considered part of citizen journalism if the author devotes his posts to information or its analysis. You found yourself at the scene of a terrorist attack or accident, you took a photo or shot a video, you posted information on the Internet. Now you are an insider, now you shape the information agenda.

The most popular blogs in the Russian-language blogosphere, such as drugoi.livejournal.com (72 thousand subscribers) or the-nomad.livejournal.com (26 thousand subscribers), function as media. Insider blogs have also turned into media. For example, the blog of Guy Kawasaki, an Apple chronicler and owner of his own venture capital firm, is considered by Google Media to be the same media product as the New York Times or Popular Mechanics.

It turned out that the average person seems to be able to do without an intermediary journalist. But it immediately turned out that this intermediary was still needed. As everything more people is drawn into online journalism, the value of professionals increases. Yes, the average person has a chance to be the first to find and tell the news. But a professional reporter with extensive experience can see more and tell it more interestingly.

In the format of a Twitter post, a casual eyewitness and a professional journalist are equal, but the journalist will beat the average person in the format of a large investigation, article, report, or book. Anyone can take a photo. A photograph that conveys the tragedy of the situation in one frame better than any, even the longest text, can only be taken by a highly professional photographer.

Even the most naive supporters of the new journalistic method finally realized by the end of the 90s: “objective journalism” can manipulate consciousness no worse than “subjective” journalism.

Against the background of general deprofessionalization, professionals find themselves at a great price. And social networks give them the opportunity to function in new formats. An example is crowdsourcing projects like Arkady Babchenko’s project “Journalism without intermediaries”: people voluntarily transfer money to him for articles posted in LJ, as a result he turns out to be independent of the editors or sponsors. Also, the new information reality creates situations where it is impossible to do without professionals. An example is WikiLeaks. The intercepted dispatches of American diplomats were available to everyone. But in order to analyze them and understand which documents are of interest and which are not, the efforts of professionals were required.

Simulated objectivity vs social navigation

Recent history Russian media In many ways it became a story about a love affair with Western journalism. Moreover, the novel is unsuccessful

“You shouldn’t take the reader for a fool. He only needs facts, the rest he will figure out on his own” - this approach became dominant in post-Soviet editorial offices already in the early 90s. Journalism teachers and media executives rushed to study Western experience and immediately divided into two camps. The older ones defended the Soviet traditions of ideological reporting and insightful essays. Younger and more energetic people with sincere enthusiasm introduced into the corporate environment the idea that a reporter is a container for collecting and delivering information to the editorial office, and let publicists and experts give out smart thoughts.

However, Western standards of journalism in their pure form have never fully taken root anywhere, and particularly zealous attempts to impose a “dictatorship of objectivity” inevitably led the Russian media to bankruptcy. The main disappointment of the decade was the Russian Telegraph newspaper. Huge money was pumped into it, it collected the best writers in the country at that time, but the dogmatic approach to both people and texts did not leave the publication a chance to survive. Even the Kommersant newspaper, which is often cited as an example of successful “objective journalism,” did not so much take Western standards as a basis, but was able to use them to the extent that they do not contradict the Russian tradition of perception of journalistic text.

Along with hopes for a successful business, professional enthusiasm also evaporated. Even the most naive supporters of the new journalistic method, which supposedly was completely devoid of signs of ideological violence, by the end of the 90s finally realized: “objective journalism” can manipulate consciousness no worse than “subjective” journalism. The interpretation of an event is not necessarily expressed in the imposition of the author's point of view. A media product that seems to contain nothing but information is no less insidious. The choice of topics, the selection of experts, the status of placement, the angle of a photo or video, the tactics of emphasis and omissions - all this is a much more effective and cynical toolkit for brainwashing.

By the end of the 90s, the romantic period in the Russian media’s relationship with “bare objectivity” more or less ended and a painful search for a new language and new means of expression began. This process coincided with the expansion of the state in the media market, which led to many journalists simply “returning to the USSR” - either to party newspapers or to dissident kitchens. And ideological hysteria, so familiar to the older generation of journalists, began to dominate the media - both on one side and on the other.

The new ones calmed the situation information Technology. In just a couple of years they destroyed the very possibility of a monopoly in the sphere of information dissemination. This relieved some of the tension in the professional workshop, but other problems arose. Millions of bloggers rushed into the media space, and then into the journalistic profession, and with them a new type of media message emerged: a minimum of information, a maximum of emotions, speculation and subjective charisma. Another extreme has begun - a terrible lack of elementary objectivity.

Only now, after experiencing the frenzy of subjectivity and the suspended animation of objectivity, Russian journalism is slowly groping for a harmonious path of development. And the choice is no longer between “bare information” and “author’s self.” There is an obvious demand in society for real semantic quality. People are ready to pay not those who will provide them with the maximum news or entertainment, but those who will save them from noise, unnecessary information and emotions.

The media of the future are not chefs, but nutritionists. People will pay them to decide for them what is healthy and what is harmful, and formulate an optimal diet. In the next decade, the winners in the media market will be those media that, while maintaining high standards of journalistic work, will be able to become a social navigator for their audience, that is, the force that forms a complete version of the world and answers the main questions of eternity and modernity.

News for everyone vs alternative view

Leading Western media formed a unified global information agenda, but in last years they have competitors

For the past few years I have had the main mainstream channels on all the time. And all this time I continue to be convinced that they have absolutely the same agenda, the same set of stories, the same approach to covering them: Libya, Syria, Pussy Riot, whatever - they cover all these topics in exactly the same way. - When Russia Today editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan talks about mainstream channels, she means, of course, not “First” or “Russia 1”, but CNN, BBC, Sky News...

And if the unanimity of Russian TV commentators is explained by reasons of an internal political nature, then the identical picture among world news leaders has deeper roots.

The bipolar world that existed before 1991 presupposed two ideologically charged, distinct views of the surrounding reality. The overall picture was formed at the intersection of these views. As a result, the propaganda machine of the USSR and its allies, which repeatedly, using all resources, reproduced, for example, information about the mass murder of civilians in the village of My Lai by American soldiers, prevented the United States from presenting, say, the war in Vietnam as a “peacekeeping operation.”

In addition, the Western intellectual environment, especially after the Paris Red May of 1968, was full of those who sympathized with the Eastern bloc. Sometimes these were opinion leaders such as Jean-Paul Sartre.

Today, English-language Chinese TV channels and the Russian Russia Today are also trying to make their contribution to the global agenda. And these attempts are not hopeless

With the collapse of the USSR, this counterbalance disappeared. And since the beginning of the 90s, most of the planet has gotten used to looking at events in the world “with one eye.” What news to watch and how to interpret it were determined, in fact, by several global market players - TV channels and news agencies. News that didn't make it to CNN or Reuters didn't exist for the rest of the world. And a one-sided interpretation at one time, for example, convinced almost the whole world that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons, that all Serbs are bloody murderers, and that Kosovars are all noble fighters for independence. In order to talk about no less brutal crimes committed by the same Kosovo Liberation Army, and also about other news that does not fall into a single agenda, it was necessary to destroy the information monopoly.

The first to do this were the Qatari sheikhs, who created the Al-Jazeera TV channel in 1996. Then Al Arabiya appeared. And the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq took place under slightly different conditions than the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia. Al-Jazeera, with the help of its correspondents, as well as Osama bin Laden with his simple mobile television studio, managed to destroy the information monopoly.

Today, English-language Chinese TV channels and the Russian Russia Today are also trying to make their contribution to the global agenda. And these attempts are not hopeless. “One of the Financial Times columnists once wrote: “To my surprise, the Russia Today television channel covered the protests on Wall Street most fully. What an irony - I would never have thought that I would switch to a Russian “controlled” TV channel in search of objective news,” says Margarita Simonyan.

The gravediggers of the global information system You can also name projects such as WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, in an interview with RR almost two years ago, said that he sees his mission as “making civilization fairer and smarter,” and the way to achieve this is “by spreading knowledge in general and knowledge that today is deliberately hidden from people, in particular". In essence, this is the expansion of the information agenda, albeit using more radical methods than Al-Jazeera or Russia Today do. Which, in fact, is what Assange’s imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy in London proves.

Infotainment vs realpolitik

Entertainment almost killed politics in the Russian media, but a turbulent political year brought live politics back into journalism

“Democratic freedoms are expressed to a very large extent in the fact that people are concerned not with politics, but with dandruff in the head, hair on the legs, sluggish bowel movements, unattractive breast shape, sore gums, overweight and stagnation of blood circulation,” the famous Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote half a century ago in his book “Understanding Media.” Two decades later, the American socio-political media have finally adapted to the new social mentality.

The pioneer was the program “60 Minutes,” aired on the CBS channel, whose hosts began to actively express their opinions on current topics, and journalists appeared in the frame almost on a par with the heroes of the reports. It is curious that almost the same age as the American “60 Minutes” was the Soviet “Vzglyad”, which not only broke with the traditions of official television, but also fit well into the global trend of presenting serious information in an accessible form.

Nevertheless, the first decade of the new Russian political media passed in the “old regime,” albeit in the Western sense, spirit: highbrow analytics, seasoned with a fair amount of hard compromising evidence.

The breakthrough into the new media world happened only at the beginning of the 2000s, when Gazprom seized control of NTV and the part of the old team remaining on the channel accepted the rules of the game of the new owner. They consisted in the maximum depoliticization of all broadcasts, including political ones. News turns into an object of curiosity, the viewer is taken away from the issues and serious discussion of the political.

The embodiment of the new style is the socio-political program “Namedni” of 2001–2004, an example of domestic infotainment. According to its editor-in-chief Nikolai Kartozia, from the very beginning the creators of the program consciously focused on American models: abandoning the strict division of topics into domestic political, economic and international, moving away from the traditional hierarchy of plots (the new “Harry Potter” could well have preceded the presidential address to parliament ), figurativeness in the interpretation of events and the “reification” of news, increased interest in “non-essential” details. Long political science debates about the behind-the-scenes games of the Kremlin and the White House in the style of Kiselyov’s “Results” have finally gone out of fashion.

But after the death of “Namedni” in 2004, domestic infotainment lost its former Parfenov-like integrity and harmony: some of the programs went into outright trash, that is, into black stuff, others into pure entertainment, that is, into entertainment.

The result was summed up in a recent study by German analysts who studied the news broadcasting of Russian channels and came to the conclusion that, despite the extremely low proportion of political programs, the amount of negative content in it is one of the highest in the world.

The situation is slightly better in print media: the era of infotainment never gave birth to full-fledged tabloids, such as in the West, which do not allow the elite there to relax, constantly delving into dirty laundry political leaders, and in this sense, oddly enough, they are guarantors of democracy.

However, at the end of the 2000s, the situation began to change. The 24-hour news channel “Russia 24”, the domestic analogue of CNN and BBC, went on air. After the December elections last year, a number of talk shows and analytical programs appeared on federal channels to satisfy the sudden return of demand for politics.

Journalists, believe me, are only too happy about this,” says Channel One presenter Maxim Shevchenko. - For some time there were no such programs, not because someone prohibited something, but because there were no topics for serious reflection. Now the themes have appeared - and comprehension has appeared.

And finally, the Internet TV channel Dozhd unexpectedly launched. Its slogan - Optimistic channel - and the pink tones of the screensavers little correspond to the real content, which, in fact, is a return to classic infotainment.

There was never an idea to create a political news channel,” says Dozhd editor-in-chief Mikhail Zygar. - There was an idea to make a TV channel for an audience that had stopped watching TV. We tried to make television that would be interesting to us and to people like us who lack high-quality, smart, interesting television. And then, experimentally, it turned out that what viewers miss most is news. Entertainment on TV channels is okay, but information is not so good. Therefore, “tainment” is very widely present on domestic television, but “infa” is very far behind it.

It is clear that format or style does not solve the problem of meeting the demand for politics as public dialogue. To join one or another political position, that is, not to think, but to know exactly where the enemy is and where the friend is, can be boring, in the old fashioned way, but it can also be done in a new, fashionable way. Creative brainwashing is essentially no different from directive brainwashing. Organizing a meaningful discussion of politics, real public debate, is the most difficult thing, it is against the trend, but such attempts will continue as long as culture and politics exist.

Forgers vs Whistleblowers

A new round of information wars is facilitated by the development of technology, but it also makes it easier to expose falsifiers.

No one will give you a definition of information war. All scientific and pseudo-scientific literature on this topic is waste paper and fiction, which is needed in order for students of numerous quasi-PR universities to take tests. - Political strategist Gleb Pavlovsky has been through more than one information war, he is, as they say, in the know.

In its recent history, Russia has experienced several very “bloody” information wars, and, characteristically, each had much more far-reaching consequences than its soldiers and generals initially assumed. The long-term consequence of one of them - Yeltsin's re-election to a second presidential term in 1996 - was a firm conviction in the limitless capabilities of media technologists, which persists to this day, both among those in power and their opponents.

The 1999 information war against the gubernatorial front led by Luzhkov and Primakov brought Putin to power. Subsequently, only targeted information special operations were carried out - information support for the arrest of Khodorkovsky, the resignation of Luzhkov, or a temporary cooling of relations with Lukashenko.

Each of these battles raised difficult ethical and professional questions for journalists. On the one hand, they seem to be “commanders” on whom the success of the entire business depends, on the other hand they are only “cannon fodder”, putting their reputation at the service of other people’s financial and political interests. You have to look for compromises, negotiate - first of all with yourself.

Let’s take, for example, Dorenko, who killed Luzhkov in 1999,” Pavlovsky reflects. - On the one hand, he had an order, but on the other, he quite sincerely disliked the Moscow mayor, who negotiated well with business executives, but showed obvious contempt for the liberal public, in particular for journalists, for which he received punishment. In general, many of those journalists who then took the Yeltsin-Putin side, which at that time was clearly the weaker, of course, worked off the money, but at the same time were sincerely convinced that, as in ’96, they were choosing the lesser of two evils.

The journalist’s sincere belief that he is defending a “just cause” guarantees his fighting effectiveness like nothing else. When our media passions subsided somewhat in the 2000s, nothing like this was observed in the West, where they actually came to us from.

A recent example is the Western media's coverage of the Arab revolutions, when the floor was actually given to only one side - the rebels. From the latest: a couple of months ago, Western media vied with each other to quote a report about the escape from Syria of President Assad’s closest associate, Republican Guard General Manaf Tlass. When he “suddenly” returned to his homeland, this fact was passed over in silence. It is difficult to suspect Western journalists of having sold themselves to the rebels - they simply have a completely sincere, but no less definite ideological position.

A new round of information wars is beginning in Russia. And it is associated with a sharp increase in the media importance of the Internet. And now Alexei Navalny, in his blog, exposes the abuses of large state-owned companies, and does this on the basis of what seems to be a deliberate leak of information, organized using 90s technologies (as in the case of the materials of the Accounts Chamber on Transneft). In turn, the state media respond in the old fashioned way - with films like the entevash “Anatomy of a Protest”, in which the authors do not disdain splicing, editing, and outright falsification.

At the same time, the spread of new technologies and, above all, the Internet complicates the task of “inducing society into a state of uncontrollable ecstasy” - this is how Gleb Pavlovsky defined the results of Yeltsin’s election campaign in 1996. The fact is that journalistic revelations are now much easier to verify. When a few years ago, United Russia blogger Vladimir Burmatov published photos allegedly from extinguishing forest fires, he was quickly caught using a photo montage. So Navalny’s opponents regularly point out frequent inconsistencies in his publications.

Information wars at the new stage will obviously be complicated by the significantly more advanced audience for which they are intended. However, it is clearly not possible to avoid them.

Each of the major television channels broadcasts several talk shows where social and political topics are discussed. On “Russia 1” he hosts the programs “Duel” and “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov”, and the talk show “60 Minutes” with Olga Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov is also broadcast there. The flagship of the socio-political block of Channel One was the talk show “First Studio” with Artem Sheinin. He, along with Ekaterina Strizhenova and Anatoly Kuzichev, hosts the daytime talk show “Time will tell.” NTV airs “Meeting Place” with Andrei Norkin and Olga Belova during the day, and “The Right to Voice” with Roman Babayan is shown on the TV Center channel in the evenings, as well as “The Right to Know” with Dmitry Kulikov.

It is enough to look at these and other political shows to notice: the same people wander from program to program. Moreover, some of them act as experts on almost all issues. The structure of the show, themes, and techniques are also repeated. Afisha Daily decided to look into these and other features of discussions on Russian political talk shows.

Issue dated March 27, 2017. Topic: "At the crime scene." The program is dedicated to Ukraine. Presenter Artem Sheinin appeals to the reaction to the murder of Voronenkov by US Senator John McCain. After this, a discussion ensues.

Leonid Smekhov

Business coach, teacher of public speaking for an MBA at IBDA RANEPA, author of the book “Popular Rhetoric”

Thanks to the image of the presenter, a feeling is created: the program is being hosted by a “man of the people”, a kind of boorish and rude native of the proletarian environment. Sheinin, in rude terms, devalues ​​McCain as a speaker, citing the following argument: “I understand that McCain spent a long time in a cage in Vietnam, where he was regularly beaten.” This is labeling as “not a completely mentally healthy person.”

One of the program participants, Igor Drandin, agrees with McCain’s words about Russia’s involvement in the murder, recalling the example of Alexei Navalny: “As soon as you talk about Putin and corruption, you are immediately sent to jail.” Other speakers begin to interrupt him, arguing that in America Navalny would be imprisoned for 15 years for rallies. This is a manipulative, unverifiable statement - a trick called “imposed consequence”, when the chain of reasoning is hidden and the emphasis is placed on the conclusion. The presenter labels the interlocutor as “you now sound like McCain,” ignores counter questions and uses an authoritarian trick - repeating the same phrase until the interlocutor gets tired and falls silent. The presenter also uses other tools to control the dialogue: gives commands to speakers; lowers the rate of speech and increases emphasis on words, which makes his speech more significant; gets personal, directly accusing his opponent of lying.

When Drandin is already off balance, trying to shout down his opponents, he looks like a capricious child. At this point, the rest of the program participants begin to behave like educators who are trying to calm him down from the position of an “adult.”

Employee of a socio-political talk show of one of the central channels

The expert wishes to remain anonymous

Opposition speakers are the biggest problem for such talk shows. The leadership wants new faces, but at the same time they need to be absolutely sure that this very “liberal-lite” will not say too much. Especially if the program is broadcast live. Of course, there is a stop list, and it is periodically supplemented, in particular, for the reason “I’m tired of it, there’s too much on the air.” These “lite liberals” can be counted on one hand. They are all paid, that is, it is their job to go on TV channels and portray enemies in a mode that is safe for the channel.

Artem Sheinin is a strange character in general. He was still tolerable when he was the shadow head of the channel's political broadcasting. But after Peter Tolstoy left for the State Duma, Sheinin apparently decided to demonstrate the height of professionalism in running political talk shows. Well, in his opinion, of course. This style of broadcasting is generally Sheinin’s style of communication. The appearance of Anatoly Kuzichev as a co-host in the show “Time will Tell”, in general, fits into the concept. Under the leadership of Sheinin himself, they were looking for someone who would resemble Sheinin without overshadowing him.

Issue dated February 21, 2017. Topic: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on Europe to tighten sanctions against Russia because it recognized the documents of the DPR and LPR. Conversation with Vyacheslav Kovtun, who is introduced as a Ukrainian political scientist.

Leonid Smekhov

The presenter sets in advance the framework within which viewers will perceive the video with Poroshenko. Immediately after watching, he once again points out the incompatibility of Poroshenko’s statements with his status and religious beliefs. It is important that the statement of the President of Ukraine is taken out of context: neither the situation, nor the identity of the interlocutor, nor the prerequisites are known. It is also impossible to say for sure that Poroshenko uttered the insult - it comes from behind the scenes. Kovtun is trying to clumsily justify Poroshenko, instead of shifting the focus or even transferring the game to the enemy’s field (his favorite speech technique is “he’s a fool”). He does this belatedly, recalling the statements of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a press conference with his colleague from Saudi Arabia.

“Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” on “Russia 1”

Issue dated May 16, 2017. Topic of the program: “Banning social networks in Ukraine. Medicine in Russia. Cultural extremism." Vladimir Solovyov and guests again oppose the Ukrainian political scientist Vyacheslav Kovtun.

Leonid Smekhov

Soloviev acts in the usual image of a cynic intellectual, increasing the persuasiveness of his statements by listing names and facts. He responds to Kovtun with manipulative tricks: he puts on a label, reducing the authority of his interlocutor; sometimes he appeals to other people - Shoigu, Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky and their expected reaction; then moves on to direct accusations. In the future, even antics are used against Kovtun in order to devalue his words and seize the initiative. He is eventually hammered again with a series of accusations. Under them he temporarily drowns.

TV show employee

The TV show really got into the themes of Ukraine and Poroshenko. This formulation of the question has long unnerved the viewer, because it resembles pouring from empty to empty. When the Ministry of Defense TV channel “Zvezda” prioritizes foreign policy topics, this is at least somehow understandable. In the case of the first button and “Russia” - no.

Topics for talk shows (especially daily ones) are formed from the current agenda. Editors regularly offer interesting moves and twists, but periodically this ends with the topic being canceled and the command: “Making Ukraine.” If some time ago this was interpreted as “Ukraine-actual”, then at the moment the current is not forged with such frequency. Therefore, the topic, as well as the program, turns out to be nothing.

Issue dated April 6, 2017. Topic: “What do they expect from Russia?” They are discussing “unsubstantiated” accusations from the West of Russian involvement in a chemical attack in Syria. Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense, opposes the American journalist Michael Bohm.

Leonid Smekhov

Korotchenko’s statement is a typical sifting of facts: he omits something quite significant, but, on the contrary, brings something to the fore. He gives additional persuasiveness to his statement with a low tempo of speech, harsh vocal delivery, and emphasis. When Bom tries to interrupt Korotchenko, he immediately begins to insult him, as if he were insulting a criminal who has already been exposed, but is still trying to interfere with the progress of the investigation. In the end, everything negative is attached personally to Bom, as usually happens on such programs.

Here it is worth noting the imbalance of volume as an additional means of influencing the listener: in this dialogue, we hear Korotchenko’s remarks much more clearly and better than Bohm’s remarks. But could it be the other way around? The American's opinion is secondary here.

TV show employee

With Bom, as with Kovtun, the situation is the same as with the paid oppositionists. It’s just their job to go on talk shows and pretend to be enemies (NTV dedicated a series of programs to foreign stars of Russian television: here it is. - Note ed.). As for fees, Bohm, for example, two years ago received fifteen thousand rubles per broadcast. Kovtun was initially paid five, but soon the fee was increased to ten.

"First Studio" on Channel One

Issue dated March 29, 2017. Topic: “Protests: how society should react to them.” The guests talk about why young people came out to protest on March 26.

Leonid Smekhov

Putin recognized the collapse of the USSR as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century, which means that this interpretation of the events of 1991 can be considered the official and main one. Gennady Zyuganov, for obvious reasons, develops this topic, linking events in Ukraine with it and using recognizable Soviet propaganda cliches: “orange provocateurs”, “under far-fetched slogans” and so on. But this does not sound archaic: modern media often use tools of speech influence from the past.

Navalny’s image is instantly transformed into that of an enemy thanks to the label “Führer.” In general, the event under discussion is presented by Zyuganov as something illegal, dangerous for the country and inexperienced youth who do not understand anything. But, thank God, there is law enforcement agencies who protect the country and prevent it from falling apart. They, according to the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, are smarter than the protesters.

Next speaker is Olga Timofeeva (member of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs. - Note ed.) develops the image of a clueless young Russian who can be drawn into a dangerous game by conscription. There is an appeal to a probable future, the topic under discussion is inflated to a global scale, and the organizers of the rallies immediately become enemies of the country, encroaching on its future. Sergei Ivanenko (member of the Yabloko party) bursting into dialogue with pressing questions and claims. Note ed.) the presenter neutralizes with the following argument: “Are you a democrat? You say that you respect the laws? So respect the laws of our studio.” The presenter says this with a disdainful tone, which weakens Ivanenko’s statement and oratorical image.

TV show employee

Was the choice of topic influenced by the fact that the central channels were criticized on the Internet for hushing up the protest action? Usually, criticism on the Internet is responded to selectively; there is no system as such. It was rather the gravity of the presenter Sheinin. It cannot be said that program management is constantly offended by criticism of the Internet and they run to give “our answer to Chamberlain.”

The presenter appeals to the words of director Alexander Sokurov, without saying a word that this phrase was taken, and also without mentioning that Sokurov has repeatedly spoken critically about the actions of the Russian authorities.

Leonid Smekhov

The presenter undertakes to claim that on his program a decision is formed on the correct reaction of society to rallies. And again a statement about the lack of understanding and stupidity of young people: if they go to a rally, it means there is wind in their heads.

Look: they managed to involve even such worthy and recognized people as Sokurov. He proposes to divide the protesters into those who cannot be touched under any circumstances, and the rest who can be touched. And now we will prove that everyone needs to be touched. Here are the cute girls in the video. Here they are sitting. But a building is on fire in Odessa. This type of innuendo is called "sandwich". We take a well-known fact - girls at a rally, we take another well-known fact - the burned down trade union house in Odessa, and between them we put an unknown and unverifiable fact: the assertion that these girls also burned the house. The trick is usually convincing.

TV show employee

The system of taking phrases out of context, unfortunately, is constantly practiced. Those who make the program realize that the person whose statement was distorted will never come to the program. And if he wouldn’t go anyway, then his hands are completely untied.

“Time will tell” on Channel One

Issue dated July 21, 2017. Topic: “Why don’t we give birth?” The program about the decline in the birth rate in recent years begins with a discussion of the presenter’s recent vacation in Crimea.

Leonid Smekhov

Sifting through the facts again: we talk about one thing and leave out another. There is an interesting point in the discussion of Crimea: the presenters’ childhood memories of the taste of peaches. Firstly, these memories should evoke the same reaction among the target audience of the program - agreement, warm memories, nostalgia, and at the same time a desire to agree with the position of the presenters. And secondly, these memories are presented with an emphasis on the kinesthetic channel of perception: taste, the sensation of flowing juice from a ripe fruit. This is done so that the viewer’s imagination draws the correct pictures, and does not deal with issues of prices and congestion of the beaches.

Let's make a reservation right away, the topics listed below are not officially prohibited in most countries; bloggers and small niche media write about these topics. Discussion of these topics in large, state- and multinational-controlled media is strictly prohibited. Let's try to break this taboo and create a fairly comprehensive list of topics that are not accepted to be discussed in the media.

1. Overpopulation

The problem of overpopulation is ignored by both the major media and the majority of the population. People are extremely sensitive to this topic, believing that no one should interfere with their right to follow the biological instinct of reproduction. It is strictly prohibited to say that excessive anthropogenic load on the planet’s biosphere is the main cause of almost all the problems facing humanity. Even if someone raises this topic, they will immediately be labeled a “fascist” or a “Malthusian” and silenced. The world's major media do not allow anyone to draw one very simple conclusion: without birth control, our planet faces an environmental disaster. It is prohibited to draw such conclusions.

2. Cause of suicide

It is customary to mention suicides in passing, but it is impossible to say that the cause of suicides is an extremely poorly organized society anywhere in the world. A journalist who connects the suicide of a teenager with the inhumanity of our society and finds the reason in the existing political system (capitalism) will immediately be shown the door. Cases of suicide throughout the world are usually hushed up, but if they are talked about, they are presented as a private problem of a private person, and no deep conclusions are drawn from them. Even when suicides are widespread, such as in India, where over the past 10-15 years about 20,000 small farmers have committed suicide because they could not compete with large agribusinesses, you will not read about them in the media.

The situation in India is so dire, in fact, that by the time you're reading this article, chances are at least one Indian farmer has drunk a few glasses of pesticide solution (the country's favorite way to get by on housing bills) and has already left for the next world. . 20,000 deaths caused by land grabs by large corporations in the local market is not a reason to write about it in the media. Not a single journalist from any major publication will write that 70% of the rural population in India is on cheap synthetic drugs. But even if he suddenly accidentally writes about this, no one will allow him to draw the main conclusion in the article: globalization claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year, the greed of corporations leads to the death of thousands of people.

3. Ocean acidification

Believe me, this topic is taboo for large publications. With some reservation. Articles on this topic sometimes slip through, but do not reflect the full tragedy of the situation. The fact is that we are still alive only because the bulk of the carbon dioxide emitted by cars, planes and ships is absorbed by the ocean. Without the ocean, we would have suffocated long ago. Our ocean is slowly dying. Compared to 1980, there are 80% fewer large commercial fish there. By mid-century, there is a possibility that life in the ocean will cease. But it is absolutely impossible to say that, for example, 1 cruise ship emits as much air pollutants per year as 1 million cars. The owners of large cruise companies are trying in every possible way to hush up the enormous harm that their ships cause to the environment. In no major media outlet can any journalist report on the inhabitants of a small island who are forced to emigrate because their ecosystem is destroyed, the fish are missing, the coral reefs are dead, while blaming large corporations. No major publication will miss this.

4. Use of slave labor

This is absolutely taboo; you will never read an article in the New York Times about how most of the goods and food you buy in stores are made using slave labor. Did you buy a bunch of bananas? Do you know that the people who collected them live in inhumane conditions, huddle in huts, without any amenities and receive pennies? Why don't the mainstream media acknowledge this and ask the big multinational companies to put a sign on every bunch of bananas warning: "Bananas (or oranges, tangerines, coffee, basically any product) are grown with slave labor." Do you use an iPhone? Why not encourage major media outlets to include a notice in each box that reads: “Thank you for purchasing the iPhone. The people who collected it for you live in a barracks-like situation in reservation factories.

In order for you to use this high-tech product, they had to cram several people into a room and work 6 days a week for 12 hours. Many of them have not seen their families and children for months, since exit outside the factory is limited to once a week. We recommend that you watch a video report on YouTube about the conditions in which they live. We hope that you will understand and forgive Apple for using slave labor to extract maximum profits from its product, and that you will not be disgusted by holding this wonderful product in your hands.” When do you think there were the most slaves on Earth? During the times of Ancient Rome? No. In our time. Currently, there are 48,000,000 people living on Earth who work only for food, without receiving any other compensation for their work. You and I also benefit from the fruits of their labor, without even knowing it. So why don’t the major media write an appeal to the owners of large companies, demanding that every item they produce be provided with a description of the conditions under which it was produced?

Imagine for a second that you bought new Nike sneakers and inside there is a photo of the ten-year-old toothless boy who glued them together for you. How pleasant will it be for you to wear them? Or, for example, when buying a new laptop, it would include a video report from the Western Digital hard drive factory, where women from Laos work in assembly without receiving any material compensation for their work. Upon arrival in the Philippines, recruiters take away their passports and force them to work for three (!) years in order to work off the plane ticket on which they arrived. Women live in barracks-type dormitories, do not have access to medical care and cannot leave anywhere because their documents have been taken away. Do you think you would be pleased to see a report about their life on the computer you just bought? Take a look around. A very large proportion of the things you use were created by slaves in the most literal sense of the word. Maybe it's time for the major media to start talking about this openly?

5. Causes of unemployment

No, of course, you can write about unemployment as much as you like, and all the world’s major media write about it almost every day, but writing about the true causes of this problem is strictly prohibited. Can you imagine Le Figaro publishing an article with the following content: “The unemployment problem in France is a consequence of the unbridled greed of the owners of large corporations, which transfer production to developing countries, where people are willing to work for pennies. Recently, three Michelin tire factories in Europe were closed, 1,500 employees were laid off, and production was moved to China so that shareholders could make more profits and buy themselves more luxurious villas and yachts. The fate of the workers is completely indifferent to them, since this does not in any way affect the company’s stock price.” Can you imagine the editorial of Le Figaro with the same text? Me not.

6. Refugees

No, all media outlets, without exception, write a lot about refugees, but very few write about the reasons for their appearance. Let us imagine that Der Spiegel published an article with the following content: “Germany must accept refugees, since their appearance is a consequence of the barbaric exploitation of the resources of Africa and the Middle East, this is the payment for the well-fed and prosperous lifestyle that you and I we lead. We drive on the highways, emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxide, which leads to droughts in Syria and Africa (a fact proven by climate scientists at the University of Los Angeles) and we should pay these people for all their inconvenience. Our companies export millions of tons of garbage and waste to Ghana and simply dump it in the landfills of this country. Due to heavy metal poisoning, many people do not even live to be 30 years old and die from diseases. Here is a list of companies that ship your trash to Ghana and kill the ecology of this country. Google “E-dump in Ghana” and see what we, consumers living in prosperous Germany, are doing to this country. Because of our uncontrolled consumption, people die every day before they even reach the age of 40.

When you throw your computer in the trash, think about the fact that someone may have to pay with their life for it.” Can you imagine such an article in Der Spiegel? No, such an article will never be published there, since it goes against the interests of the government and large corporations. There will be no such article, and major media will remain silent about the fact that huge volumes of garbage are being exported to the African continent. Why draw the attention of wealthy consumers to the facts about the consequences of their lifestyle?

7. The truth about green technologies

The media enthusiastically writes about electric cars, alternative sources of electricity, wind generators, and solar panels. But in no article you will find a description of how dangerous the production of neodymium magnets for wind generators is for our environment. So dangerous that the only country where their production is allowed is China. Nor will they write about the fact that to produce one solar panel it is necessary to spend as much energy as it would produce in its entire life. They will not say that the production of alternative sources of “green” energy leads to massive environmental pollution. They will also forget that an electric car pollutes the atmosphere even more than a conventional gasoline engine, provided that the electricity to charge its batteries was produced at a coal-fired power plant. God forbid, you should never write about something like this. Or that companies extracting lithium for batteries are barbarically exploiting the natural resources of Peru and Bolivia, and throwing in an article a couple of photographs of children living near the mines, dying from heavy metal poisoning, is generally unthinkable for the world's major media. When you buy your first electric car, remember these children.

They died so that you wouldn't feel guilty when going to the supermarket. To make you feel good about using environmentally friendly transport. It would be nice to attach to your car photographs of several women who were killed in Mexico only because the plant producing plastic parts for your car did not want to send its employees home on payday. They walked home through the dark streets and were killed for a small stack of money that they had earned with their blood and sweat. In an interview, the owner of the enterprise will later state that due to competition, he cannot transport employees home; he does not have money to ensure their safety. Then he will say that there are many others who want to take their place. The company won't even pay for the funerals of its former employees. I'd like to see CNN encourage new car owners to print on the hood pictures of murdered women who died so they could drive SUVs in comfort.

8. Destruction of rainforests

This topic, to put it mildly, is not very popular in the major media. But it slips through from time to time. But never, I emphasize, never will a journalist write about companies that are the breeders of this crime against humanity. You will never read in the Wall Street Journal that, for example, the profits of the ABC agricultural holding increased due to barbaric deforestation in the Amazon region, where the company set up plantations for the production of palm oil. A journalist who makes a clear and unambiguous connection between the deforestation of tropical forests and the rise in the stock price of a particular company will simply be fired without severance pay. It is not customary to write about such things in a leading financial publication.

9. The impact of modern technology on health

Have you ever heard of some major publication publishing facts about the negative impact of cellular communications on humans? Confirmed by scientists and research? But such studies exist, moreover, this fact can be considered proven. But neither on American nor on British television will you see major investigations into how harmful radiation from cell towers is. This is an unpopular topic among journalists, since it affects the interests of large telecommunications companies, which pay huge amounts of money to hush up the facts that their technologies are harmful to health. Business, nothing personal. The same thing is happening in the pharmaceutical sector. Thousands of people who died due to the side effects of a new drug that generates several billion dollars in profits per year are not something to write home about.

10. Social order

There is a topic that is completely taboo for the world's major media. This is the topic social order. Not a single major publication in the world will publish an article that capitalism has outlived its usefulness, that it is necessary to develop other forms of social order, and will remain silent about the fact that the uncontrolled thirst for enrichment is killing our planet. He won’t write a few unflattering words about the owners of large corporations, he won’t call them dirty names. Social order cannot be discussed, but it is impossible to say that democracy and capitalism are antonyms and generally a taboo topic. You won't read about this in the International Herald Tribune. The Sun publication will remain silent. And the Boston Globe will lower its eyes in shame. It is not customary to talk about such things in the society of gentlemen. Look around you with different eyes. Look at the things and goods that are on store shelves. That piece of pork over there is deforested forests and rivers poisoned by plums from livestock farms. That new pair of sneakers is the child labor of Filipino slaves. Smartphone. For his sake, our planet was polluted with heavy metals, and more than a dozen people died as a result.

And those plastic tomatoes, so that you could buy them, some bankrupt farmer had to commit suicide. Cute women's dress. So that you could wear it for your pleasure, the textile mill poisoned a couple of rivers in which all the fish died. But soap and cosmetics with the addition of palm oil. So that you can keep yourself clean and beautiful, hundreds of hectares of tropical forest had to be cut down and planted with palm trees that kill the soil and the environment. In the morning you drink coffee without thinking about those Nicaraguans who live as slaves and collected this coffee for you for a couple of pesos. Someone made good money from this. Here is a book, for the production of which a tropical forest in Africa was cut down, tens of thousands of animals died, and a eucalyptus plantation was planted on it to make paper. No other plant except eucalyptus will grow in this place, since eucalyptus releases substances that kill all other vegetation. So you flew to Turkey on vacation. The carbon dioxide emissions from your plane will ruin some fishermen in Micronesia, where all the fish have died due to increased ocean acidity.

This is our planet and we must at least be aware of the price we pay for our way of life. We must understand that in order for us to enjoy the benefits of civilization, we pay a very high price. And try to at least reduce it a little through our consumption. It is clear that we will not be able to refuse all goods produced in sweatshops. So let's at least enjoy the fruits of slave labor and barbaric exploitation of nature to a minimum. We can change this world, but first we need to understand what is wrong with it. But we must do this on our own; the large media (dis)information will not help us with this.