Hysni Gurra: Traditional media have lost public trust, the space for free thought has disappeared

Journalist Hysni Gurra has spoken about his departure from traditional screens and his commitment to the YouTube platform, where he conducts independent interviews and conversations.

On Floriana Garo's "Elevate" podcast, he criticized the state of the Albanian media, emphasizing that they have been recycling the same characters and the same rhetoric for decades, losing the ability to bring new ideas and authentic debate.

He said that the public is tired of popular television formats and attempts to attract audiences through artificial studio clashes.

The journalist emphasized that his YouTube channel does not aim to compete with traditional media, but to create a space where ordinary people, intellectuals, journalists, and various professions, including farmers, can speak out about their problems and reality.

In the interview, Gurra argued that just as Albania has a political elite that has dominated for 35 years, there is also a media elite that functions in symbiosis with politics. 

According to him, a part of the media has contributed to the creation and support of the country's political and social reality, turning into a "parallel nomenclature" of politics.

Excerpts from the conversation:

Gurra: That's what I wanted to explain, why traditional media is boring to people, and also to us who work in this, in this sector, who need to have information to be updated. For 35 years, our media has been circulating the same people, who use the same rhetoric, and everything is known. If you tell me that so-and-so is tonight in X studio, I know what it means if you tell me the topic. So there are no, there are no new things anymore, there are no surprises anymore. You've seen them, they're starting to do these jokes on traditional screens, not fighting with each other, you know, to catch an audience, or something. Because no, they don't follow people anymore and people have understood this. Of course, I said it once again, I'm not, they won't disappear, they will continue. We haven't come out to challenge them. For example, I don't call this channel of mine a podcast, nor a show, like that. I call it a conversation with ordinary people, intellectuals, journalists. I'll also include farmers in the conversation. Let's ask them, let's have real-life people, let's know what they do, what problems they have.

Garo: You say that the same people circulate, why do the same people circulate?

Gurra: Because we have just as we have a political elite that has ruled Albania for 35 years, we also have an elite. This elite cannot survive if it does not have a mirror or a screen where it can display its programs, its propaganda, which is the media. These are in symbiosis with each other. Yes, in this last decade, every space for free thought and free speech in the media disappeared. There is no more, no, we no longer have, pressure on journalists, or violence, or who knows what, destruction, failures of broadcasts on channels, these. They simply buy them. They pay them, they buy them, and this, I call the media nomenclature. Just as we have these policies, just as we have this. These are people who have caused damage to Albania, not directly as politics has caused them, let's say it has depopulated it, it has plundered it, it has... it has not provided services, it has not built a livable life for ordinary citizens in Albania. These have influenced making this reality a fact.

Garo: So they have given their support to the deep reality that you are showing.

Gurra: Yes, of course, yes, of course, it is a parallel nomenclature that politics has built. For me too, I think that this has a, it must, it must be said.

Garo: Do ​​you think the public knows this well? I'm not talking about the public that always follows political programs at dinner, but a slightly more carefree public, let's say that it's casual.

Gurra: Now, the public has been educated, so the public is educated. The purpose of the media is to educate the public. And what we said so far is that it has educated it intentionally. I use the terms that I say, it has brainwashed, it has brainwashed people. But, as we are seeing in recent days, there is a public, that careless public that you say, that is not a public that, that has been brainwashed, or that is uninformed, or, let's say, a public that listens to what the television says and says, and that is how it is. This type of public, how is it rising, that protests are emerging? It is rising from social networks, it is not rising from traditional media. So today we have the squares of Europe where there are Albanians and the squares of Tirana and Albania are full of young men and women professionals. Of course, I have another opinion, then, to elaborate a little later on the issue of this, this revolution that these people call the flamingo revolution. But, these people have emerged thanks to new media, thanks to social networks, that's what they were called.