Since working for Dnevnik, there`s a certain phenomenon I would like to share with you.
It concerns our president, Janez Drnovšek and his website, Gibanje za razvoj in pravičnost.
I am not going to debate his views or his agenda, the amazing thing I noticed is that the media is treating that site like the well of souls. Everything that the president says gets reproduces almost instantly on every general media website, be it Delo, Dnevnik or Večer. It does not even get analysed, it just gets copy-pasted and maybe paraphrased.
I understand that political communication is changing and that the web is taking number one spot on the media scale. I am aware of the power of blogs and the speed of the web, combined with the simpleness of the interface.
What I do not understand is the copy-paste part of the equation. Are journalists so hung up on His words that they are treating them like words of…erm…a deity? Stone slabs with commandments? And on the other side, if his site is so succesful, why the hell aren`t the other mimicking it? Why are they mocking it and neglecting it?
Go figure.
Most journalists are lazy by nature (not you obviously) and copying and pasting saves them from having to make things up. Mr Drnovšek seems to me to be a politician of decency and dignity who doesn’t seem to mind lending himself to unfair ridicule occasionally. You should treasure him. I’d certainly trade him for any of our current crop.
“Most journalists are lazy by nature…”
If you could at least say “Some people – and that also includes some journalists – are lazy by nature” than I would read your comment and maybe took it seriously. But this is only another prejudice that proves nothing about jurnalists and says a lot about you, plav trg.
Tamara – sorry – I wasn’t aware this blog was into political correctness. There certainly hasn’t been much evidence of it over the last couple of years. Anyway, I’ll have another go ……
Sometimes, but not always, some journalists may take the easier option of reproducing existing material rather than writing something new. This is, in some cases, simply human nature and something we may all do from time to time. If the source material in question comes directly from an interesing and sometimes controversial politician then it is possibly even more understandable for them to do this.
If some other people mock the politician it may simply be that they disagree with him either personally or politically and may wish to discredit him in some way. This has, allegedly, been done many times in the past. But possibly not in Slovenia. Or it may be for some other reason. Who knows?
I will try to be more careful in future and wish you every success in your efforts to stamp out generalisation. There is no prejudice however and what it says about me is that I had 5 minutes to make a comment and wrote off the top of my head, as some people may do. Sometimes.
Oooooooh, how nice! Thank you, plav trg.
I am always prepared to change my mind if I am wrong. My favourite part from Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks and quotationis of Jack Nicholson is still: “Why can’t we all just get along?” (let’s leave beside a fact that Martians almost destroyed the Earth right after this line ;)).
And I agree with you about Drni-lama. Actually I am proud (for the first time) that he is our president.
Thanks Tamara. I’m sure we can all follow Jack’s advice. Just look out for those Martians! (I’d put a smiley face on if I knew how to do it.
Well, whatever it says about me, I do think most journalists are lazy. I believe SOME of them are even worse, but let’s not go into that.
I also think above is true for pretty much any profession you can think of and certainly for mine (software development).