Andrei Bastunets: “Officials want media to hush up problems”
- 5.11.2009, 19:17
Mass media experts say representatives of the Belarusian authorities don not want to give important information to the public.
The Ministry of Information of Belarus suppresses any attempts to misinform the public. First deputy minister of information Liliya Ananich told this commenting on panic about acute respiratory virus infections and flu sowed by some media outlets.
“We analyze the situation and, in accordance with the law, will suppress any attempts to misinform the public,” Liliya Ananich said. Deputy head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Andrei Bastunets commented on this statement to www.euramost.org.
– In your opinion, are officials looking for someone to blame by criticising the media for sowing panic? Or do journalists pass all bounds in their chase for sensation?
– In my view, such a reaction of officials can’t stop the panic, but just increase it. I have an impression that officials do not want to give the public some important information. Moreover, terrifying rumours have spread not through the media but by word of mouth. The media performed their duty, they had a professional approach. Maybe this can be a reason for such a painful reaction of officials? This has become a usual reaction of officials to actions of media in difficult situations.
– Professional journalists never write about their personal impressions of an event – they ask specialists to comment on this. How can journalists be accused of publishing opinions of specialists and experts?
– This question should be addressed to the deputy minister of information. This is she who must answer. In actual fact, in most cases journalists acted like professionals, but officials apparently think the professional approach is hushing up a problem or presenting only the official position.
– The question arises that medical workers should work more closely with the media, give them information, comment on the situation. But we are always facing refusals to answer our questions in spite of the appropriate Lukashenka’s decree...
– This is a real problem. For example, press services do not make own information, but just represent the information they had received from their leadership. But the above mentioned decree on press services, calls of high ranking officials to cooperation with the media rather give a reason to concern. Press services are a kind of filter between information and mass media. They are to filter the information comfortable for the leadership of an organization. Press services are subjective to the leadership of a governmental body, their activity is being monitored by ideological departments of Lukashenka’s administration.
– Don’t the authorities use the situation to accuse the unwanted media of provoking panic and misinforming about the influenza to apply punitive sanctions on them?
– It was an oral warning of the deputy minister, it wasn’t addressed to concrete subjects. We can’t exclude a written warning aiming at concrete media outlets. This warning may target not the information in press, but the information in electronic versions of newspapers. I think it is possible. It the oral warning remains without attention or misunderstood, other consequences are possible.