A perfect relationship
Let me begin with an honest confession. Up until I lost it in a cab, I had very fancy Nokia smart-phone, which I received as a gift in Buenos Aires, during the launching of a new generation of mobile phones. It was a very nice trip to Argentina. The Nokia crew treated us well: they hosted us at the Hilton, in Puerto Madero; they took us on a city tour and invited us to a really nice restaurant where we had an Argentine BBQ accompanied by tasty Pampa wine. Then they gave us an unbelievably smart phone, and sent us back home.
I wrote an article for my paper, El Espectador (Colombia’s oldest and most respected national newspaper) about the emerging trend of smart-phones and the “mobile lifestyle”. I didn’t promote Nokia phones, nor did I criticize the gadget. I just reported the event, just the way we are supposed to do in journalism. My readers, however, were not told how well Nokia treated me.
Please don’t judge me so harshly. Ever since I began to work as a journalist, I have seen the permanent rain of invitations and gifts that parade on halls of Colombian newsrooms, coming from a wide array of actors. Multinationals offer nice coffee table books and USB’s; I have seen iPods sent to senior editors from the Local Chamber of Commerce and I have seen DVD players courtesy of the Polo Democratic, Colombia’s left wing party.
I am aware that this is an article about freedom of expression in Colombia, and that I should be talking about how one of Colombia’s most respected magazines was recently shut down, allegedly because of its investigative reporting on the wrongdoings of the government (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/02/20/colombia-the-closure-of-cambio-magazine/).
I could also be writing about self-censorship, a very common practice in Colombia, where journalists have learned to silence themselves in order to avoid being killed or injured by criminal and armed actors (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30852). However, I report from Bogota and I work on a liberal progressive paper that has never censored me. I feel safe and I have never been stopped from writing what I want.
But I also believe that Colombian journalism needs to discuss how to handle PR agencies. In the big cities, just a few media outlets have clear policies regarding gifts acceptance, for instance. In the provinces the situation is even worse: journalists get paid regarding to the advertisement they sell. I have to live every day with the masquerade promotion of public relations officers, public affairs departments and communication agencies. Whether they work for a state agency, a foreign government embassy or a private company, they will always try to do their job well: to make sure journalists easily find the information that they want to see published, and to do their best not to let you find what they fear may damage their operations.
They build networks of indirect lobbying, with the purpose to have you ready when they need you. They invite journalists to cocktails and receptions, they send you gifts for Christmas and call you from time to time. Then, they make sure you have the right press release when they want you to publish something. Their job is usually “useful”, because... journalists need news. So, the reciprocal relationship is perfect.
It is perfect especially as one of the most important threats towards the role of serious journalism in Latin-American democracies. Why? Because in times when media houses have finance problems and lack resources for investigative journalism, the PR agencies and the lobby organizations will pay the bill for journeys and such. Then the interest of the government and the powerful business world become the ones who set the agenda for journalism, not the interest of the citizens.
Juan Camilo Maldonado Tovar
El Espectador
Colombia