At the end of the 18th century, many West European countries banned The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The protagonist commits suicide by shooting himself because of unrequited love. The book was banned because of a series of suicides committed by young men in the same manner. That’s when the connection between publication of information about violence and its social effects was made.
The U.S. and many European countries have legal mechanisms regulating the media when it comes to reporting on violence. Many media also have codes and standards about reporting such incidents.
In Britain it is forbidden to show close-ups of severed limbs after accidents. There are clear regulations for how many seconds and how closely you can show such videos. This is not censorship, but a way to be responsible about every word you say and every frame you screen.
In Ukraine, it’s not regulated. The only thing that can potentially restrain newsrooms are personal ethics of journalists. Unfortunately, not everyone has them.
Just a few weeks ago, I walked into a cutting room and bumped into a young female editor with a very red face. She turns around and tells me: “I can’t edit this.” It was a video of a news item about the rape of a nine-year-old girl. But other people can do it.
Imitation of television
There is a direct correlation between media reports about suicides and the increase in numbers of suicides, especially among teenagers. Suicides, as well as other forms of violence are known to have produced copycats.
Does this mean that news of violence should be hushed? No. It means that it needs to be done carefully and guided by the principle of “do not harm.” I found a document developed by the department of mental health of the World Health Organization, published in 2000, entitled “Prevention of suicides.”
In it are recommendations for media workers, how news about suicides should be reported as to not harm society. It’s basically a list of prohibitions: a suicide cannot be reported as a routine event. Details should be withdrawn about the exact manner of suicide. You cannot describe the situation that caused it as “hopeless” and present the reasons as if they justify the action.
Every such report should have a comment by a psychologist condemning the action and explaining that there are many ways out, and reminding about help hotlines whose numbers should be shown below.
These are just a portion of the demands. But tell me, when was the last time you saw Ukrainian TV adhering to at least one? I almost never have. Because if you report this way, the poignancy of the material, its heat will disappear, and any editor will tell you it is “pathetic crap.” That’s why until recently all self-respecting newsrooms have refrained from such themes: to report on them brightly would produce maniacs, and to report otherwise would not make sense.
Vadym Tytushko and other zombies
At the May 18 opposition rally thugs in sports gear beat up my colleague Olya Snitsarchuk. This happened before the eyes of hundreds of people, and in the presence of police. Many people were upset about violence against a woman, but few understood the reasons behind it.
The attacker, Tytushko, later explained that he was invited to the rally. He came there specially to fight, realized exactly what it meant, and did not see anything inappropriate about it. He wasn’t bothered about attacking peaceful demonstrators. He calmly pondered his “noble” mission of “supporting order,” and this is what order looks like in his head, obviously.
Why? Unfortunately, in Ukrainian society nobody ever condemned violence. When in 2011, Ukrainian journalists decided to boycott Party of Regions MP Mykhailo Chechetov, there was just one reason behind it: his blatant lies that his opposition colleagues, which had been beaten by the Party of Regions representatives by throwing chairs on top of their heads, sort of “did it themselves.”
Leader of the faction Oleksandr Yefremov, from media demanded an apology, instead talked nonsense about the need “to bring order to parliament.” This must have been the same order as Tytushko’s. The act of terrible violence was not condemned by any of the politicians, but bloody consequences followed.
This spring, when MP Iryna Gorina was hit by a block of ice on the head, many people laughed at what they called a mock concussion. People said “she deserves it; this is revenge to the Regions for driving people to this state.”
The attack was only condemned by Iryna Gerashchenko of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform and Yulia Tymoshenko, the two women who know what it is like to suffer from violence.
So is the attack on Snitsarchuk really that surprising? It’s only natural in a society where violence has become normal in both politics and at home. And TV, as a social institution, is involved.
When TV shows news about one young man beating up another, a third one like Tytushko will come into the street thinking there is nothing wrong with what saw.
We’re living in a pathological society, most of which is incapable of critically assessing what they see on TV. And when journalists report on a mother who killed two children, we need to know that some will take it as an example. This is very dangerous: by talking about violence, we produce more violence.
Ukraine’s TV is a true catastrophe. News about murders, rapes and everyday home violence grab headlines. TV managers explain this ensures good viewer ratings, but the channels could not care less about the social impact.
Basically, what is happening is a hidden type of censorship, when journalists have to report not on what’s important, but what drives ratings. And I am no longer sure what is more dangerous: political censorship or this type of reporting.
Olga Chervakova is a former parliamentary correspondent for STB, a TV channel that belongs to Viktor Pinchuk. She quit recently because she disagreed with the channel’s editorial policy. This op-ed was first published on www.korrespondent.net and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
