Aching for more good news in the media? Try Russia.
Robert Coalson, a native of Washington State, is editor of
the
St. Petersburg Times. (That’s the
Russian St. Petersburg.) In the job, he directs four Russian reporters covering
the city for the English-language newspaper.
So how does Coalson instruct his reporters to look for news?
“In America, most everything works properly most of the
time. “So ‘news’ in America is usually going to be the thing that goes wrong,”
Coalson explains. “But in Russia, most things don’t work properly most of the
time. Here, ‘news’ is more likely to be the things that work right for a
change.
“We could do plenty of stories about schools, for example,
where the buildings don’t have enough heat, the children are cold, and there
isn’t enough food. That’s really not news,” he said. “But when there is a
program or a new effort underway to change that, now that’s news.”
Apart from the obvious differences of language and culture,
other aspects of reporting in Russia are amazingly similar to the U.S., Coalson
says. As in the States, Russian reporters see themselves as the defenders of
free speech. They may not refer to the First Amendment, but whatever the
Russian equivalent, Russian reporters there see it as their professional responsibility
to protect free speech as a right of the individual.
And finding spokespersons willing and able to work productively with reporters
is a continuing challenge in Russia just like it is in the U.S., according to
Coalson. If anything, Russian businessmen
(and most are men) are more reluctant to speak and more skeptical about
reporters than their U.S. counterparts.
Russian businessmen leap to the assumption that any reporter
calling for comment on a story is digging for dirt and searching for scandal,
he said. Few Russians in business or in government have developed the level of
trust with reporters that is necessary for the relationship to really benefit
their organizations.
You can view The St. Petersburg Times on the Web at
http://www.sptimesrussia.com.
