UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE SVETLANA JUSKEVITS PROFESSIONAL ROLES OF RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS AT THE END OF THE 1990s A Case Study of St. Petersburg Media Licentiate's Thesis Journalism and Mass Communication May 2002 Svetlana Juskevits Professional Roles of Russian Journalists at the End of the 1990s A Case Study of St. Petersburg Media ABSTRACT The study explores the professional roles of contemporary Russian journalists with the aim to discover how journalism contributes to the development of democracy and civil society. St. Petersburg at the end of the 1990s is presented as a case in the post-Soviet situation combining features of centre and periphery. The study started in 1998 with a pilot study based on 11 expert interviews, continued in 1999 with 30 in-depth interviews with journalists and was completed in 2001 with an inquiry including 12 experts. The data represent local conditions of journalism in media chosen for the study. The study pursues intrinsic and instrumental interests in research on journalists by combining open questions (to obtain free responses) and closed questions (to focus on specific professional topics). The phenomena of professionalism are approached, on the one hand, through design and theories used in earlier studies on journalists, while on the other hand, a free look is taken at the phenomena still unclarified conceptually and empirically through procedures of grounded theory. A central finding of the study is that contemporary journalism has been formed by two types of professional roles, representing two types of professional subculture: the old generation (practitioners entering the profession in the Soviet era) and the new generation (practitioners who entered the profession after 1990). The subculture of the old generation is quite homogeneous and conservative, represented by 'standardized' professionals recruited (mainly after school and army) and trained (mainly in the university) according to the State policy toward communism: selected mostly from the working class, educated in Soviet theory and practice of journalism and socialized through party membership. Soviet professionals continue to hold a cultivated view of journalism as important social work in natural collaboration with the authorities, whereby they have a natural responsibility to support social order and render practical guidance to people. They perform the role of social organizers with the inherent functions of upbringing, educating and punishing. In contrast, the young generation of the 1990s represents a heterogeneous subculture consisting of different representatives regarding age, ethnicity, origin, education, experience and social class: they have rather self-interest in journalism than a romantic image of a (state) public service. They seek no professional association and prefer to act alone for profit, new life prospects and to satisfy creative ambitions. They orientate to the new role of entertainers of the masses through a sensational agenda and perceive journalism rather as PR for the promotion of political and economic interests of media clients (influential groups and persons in policy and business). They often combine permanent and freelance jobs doing services not only in journalism but also in commercial sector of the economy. Despite their differences, both streams of journalism - the older generation patronizing the people and the young generation serving the elite and masses accept the political function of journalism as a propaganda machine; both participate on the side of the authorities, for example, in covering elections. Three conceptions on journalism can be identified: the journalist as propagandist, organizer and entertainer. These are crucially different from the corresponding Western roles: disseminator, interpreter and adversary. Thus, Russian journalism develops in its own cycle which reveals the strength of cultural traditions over political conjuncture. Table of contents INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Domestic Studies 5 2. Foreign Studies 23 3. Professionalism 33 PART TWO: METHOD AND MATERIAL 4. Method 44 5. St. Petersburg Media 56 6. Portrait of the Journalists in the Sample 79 PART THREE: ATTITUDES TO JOB 7. Practices 92 8. Tasks 118 9. News Criteria 128 10. Genre 138 11. Audience 147 PART FOUR: PROFESSIONALISM AND ETHICS 12. Types of Professionals 154 13. Semi-autonomy 166 14. Values 172 15. Self-regulation 182 16. Corruption 185 17. Future Prospects 188 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION 190 REFERENCES 205 Appendix 1 222 Appendix 2 225 Appendix 3 226 Appendix 4 232 What London needs that is early for Moscow Alexander Pushkin 1822 The Epistle to the Censor INTRODUCTION The idea to study contemporary Russian journalists emerged four years ago and it was inspired by 'The Global Journalist: News People Around the World' (Weaver 1998). The book presented the journalists' profiles from 21 countries covering various corners of the globe from the Far East and the Australia to Europe and the Americas. However, the collective portrait of the global journalist did not include a Russian journalist, which seemed strange and unfair. A wish to rectify this omission motivated me to undertake this study. In addition, my supervisor Kaarle Nordenstreng advised me to focus on journalists in contemporary Russia. After graduating from Leningrad State University, Faculty of Journalism in 1982 I worked as a journalist in Murmansk broadcasting for thirteen years (1983-1996). After moving to Finland in the fall of 1997 I began to pursue PhD studies in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Tampere. I also met support in my 'native' Faculty, whose new dean, Marina Shishkina, promised her assistance in my access to the media in St. Petersburg. The Finnish Academy of Sciences had financed a pilot study in 1998. The network between the departments of Journalism of the universities in Finland, Sweden, Norway on the one hand, and of Estonia and St. Petersburg on the other hand, had financed my fieldwork in 1999 and expert inquiry in 2001. The project "The Development of Modern Democracy in Russia" by the Finnish Academy of Sciences, headed by Harri Melin financed the writing thesis in 2001-2002. The study is undertaken with a conviction that the knowledge of the features of professionalism could promote the understanding of Russian journalism. The question of professionalism remains one of the most topical both in the Russian and the Western discourses on the Russian media and media workers. The history of research on Russian journalists reveals clearly enough a tendency for an earlier conceptual conflict between domestic and foreign scholars regarding their conceptual convergence. The Soviet approach to professionalism in journalism defended political-publicist reporting whereas the Western approach held the idea of neutrality. Both sides accused each other - one for promoting market without principles, and the other for propagandist brain washing. The situation changed crucially after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. Both sides laid foundations for common discussion about the professionalization of the Russian media and journalists (Kolesnik, Svitich and Shiryaeva 1995; Wu, Weaver and Johnson 1996; Kolesnik 1998; Davis, Hammond and Nizamova 1998). 1 What is professional standard in the occupation? What ends journalism has in society and what is the role of a journalist today? These issues are still unclear for the post-Soviet discourse although searches for a formula of professionalism have been undertaken by scholars, educators and practitioners. Thus, Kazakov (1999, 3) states that "Russian journalism still very roughly knows itself and its nearest and far professional kinsfolk. Strictly speaking it still does not know precisely the address of its house in the informational world". The American researchers note that "that it is unclear in Russia and other East European countries what professionalism will mean and what the role of the journalist will be", although the last changes give hope for them to think that "journalism is one of the few occupations that have moved toward professionalization since the reforms started" (Wu, Weaver, and Johnson 1996, 535). Really, it seems that the first decade of radically liberal reforms in post-Soviet Russia established practically all necessary preconditions of democracy: freedom of speech and elections, freedom of market and private property, freedom of travel and communication. However, the results of the last sociological studies on Russia, both in the country and abroad, testify rather to obstacles than to successes achieved in the building of democracy (Clarke 1996; Srednii Klass v Sovremennom Rossiiskom Obshchestve 1999; Obshchestvennaya ekspertiza 2000; Ledeneva and Kurkchiyan 2000; Melin 2000; Zaslavskaya 2000; Kivinen 1998, 2001). Contemporary Russia is characterised as "social formation comprising elements of emergent capitalism combined with substantial remnants of the old Soviet system, albeit without the central planning" (Simon 1999,1). The appraisals by the media analysts contain both pessimistic and optimistic views on the present: "In both the communist and capitalist versions, the media were and are run by people very remote from the lives of the mass, and over whom the masses have no control whatsoever. Democratizing the media means breaking the control of those elites over what are necessarily the main means of public speech in large-scale societies" (Sparks 2000, 47). "Despite the criticism one