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OP-ED

The audio-tap of a criminal journalist and the truths that are not told there

Politiko 2023-03-24 16:50:27
The audio-tap of a criminal journalist and the truths that are not told there

Alfred Lela

Unfortunately, the avenues of Albanian journalism, especially that of the last decade, are shitty when they could be bloody. Countries with great journalism have their heroes and emblems. We don't. We don't have reputational journalism awards, but we have a price for any journalist. A biased stand, a support, an article, or a TV show has this or that fee—likewise, a blackmail, a tip, a wink, and a full editorial line.

We saw this 'price list' exposed through the mouth of a television journalist very close to the Rama Government. The rumors have been intense, but this is the first time the prices and their methodology have been made public.

Media organizations did not react, except for the Media Council, a new organization supported by the European Council. There was no strong distancing from journalists, individually or en bloc, known or little known. The government did not make a sound.

The government should have spoken because the journalist in question, even if he was not on its payroll, was head and shoulders immersed in its agenda. Disguised as an activist, he has brought two lawsuits to the justice bodies. The subject of one is former president Meta, a political opponent of PM Rama and the head of one of the two main opposition parties. The matter of second is the former deputy prime minister Arben Ahmetaj. At first glance, this makes the plaintiff journalist a knight of the law: he fights evil in opposition and power. It seems so, but the truth is hidden in the fine detail of a struggle for survival inside the belly of the incinerator's monster. This makes the lawsuit not a battle for the right but a custom ambush.

Let's face it, engaged journalism is one thing, and using the influence and power of the media to achieve material gains is quite another.  

I don't know what the solution is. Having a government with such a criminal record regarding media, you can't ask for regulatory initiatives. Self-regulation, a 'miracle instrument' that in some local or foreign circles, is seen as salvation, takes a long time; the fear is that the gangrene is so deep that, when it produces an effect if it does, journalism will no more be an intermediary between the public and the powers that be, but one of the forces of evil.

Nor can you leave ethical standardization up to the public because there is already plenty of evidence that, in large numbers, the public prefers the banal. Here you can grasp one of the reasons for the degeneration of the media. Its elites have decided not to shape the people but to be shaped by them. In short: give the public what it wants. There is neither Caesar nor God in this equation. There is only an amorphous and vast mass in search of pleasure. A pack that does not think. That has formed a culture of its own and believes only in it. Precisely as Alain Finkelkraut puts it: every time you bring up 'thought,' they slam you with their 'culture.'

In this sense, Adriatik Doçi and others that embody dark shades of anomalies that have become the order of things are only a bolt in the grant incrimination mechanism of the media world, which imitates politics, which is a product of this society.

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