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Things That Happen 12: The Ukraine and Russia Conflict and Media Coverage


It remains uncertain when exactly peace talks will commence on the Belarus border between Ukraine and Russia, but make no mistake, while Ukraine resists, Russia continues to build up its forces and equipment around many cities. And whether it will ever happen.

Putin isn't going to send his officials in to negotiate unless he believes he has the strongest hand. And having the strongest hand means holding several of the largest cities. He has, as of yet, not unleashed his greatest firepower for both an air and ground assault.

While the step up in international sanctions will bite, be assured, this despot would have considered the implications weeks and months ago. The actual planning for this action didn't start a few weeks or months ago; it's been in the making since 2013. The course of history is defined by when we start to pay attention and when we lose it – when we act or react. There’s no physical battlefield for that place.

Currently, mass media do what they always do: tell a news story, no matter how big or small, and attempt to insert chosen editorial headlines and news article content that plays upon slants, biases, opinions and, above all – emotion – for interactive click-through and division. And often at the expense of reality and facts or a watering down of them. People seem happy to get suckered into that while still protesting on a keyboard or phone in a bedroom or living room.

I get the helplessness. Sure, you can always do a blue and yellow social media profile, and create yet another pointless Change.org petition. If it helps you feel better. Fair enough.

But there is a longer conversation about that: who you are really helping and making feel better now you’ve ‘done something’ in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. I know I might seem harsh, but I’ve seen enough blue and yellow lights and colours on profiles, buildings throughout the world, and enough ‘thoughts and prayers.’ I’m sure all those lights, thoughts and prayers in solidarity are appreciated by the people in Ukraine, but it just exposes our own empathy, humanity, together with a sense of helplessness.

Let’s be honest with each other. Like the pandemic, we want this to be over soon and not be reminded of it by the barrage of media coverage. It’s an inconvenience far away and we are all struggling to understand what on earth is going on and how this all happened.

How? History repeats itself. We take our cues from what is served up to us on a media plate and we decide we didn’t order that from the menu. But unlike a restaurant, we don’t get to send it back to the kitchen. We can unplug the TV, radio, remove social media from our phones, but the people – family, friends and workmates – are still talking about it elsewhere. We can ignore, distract ourselves and play a pretence that this doesn’t/won’t affect me, but we all know it will. History repeats itself. Near cow – far away cow. WWI & II, Palestine, Syria, Bosnia, South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, etc., pick a card, any card… we all feel these things are bigger than us and we are small. Like the pandemic, things only become bigger when they creep up on you in the rear-view mirror. Things that happen. How have my gas, electricity and tax bills gone up? How could this possibly have happened?

Life has a way of presenting itself on your doorstep whether you like it or not – taxes and death. If you can’t figure it out, then I also can’t help you. So, stop reading now.

Otherwise…   

That’s not my approach. Whether reader, listener or viewer, I do my best to get the basics right. But I don’t always profess to get it right. But I’m a freelance journalist. I’m not a mind reader or fortune-teller. But I know – whatever the story – most want three things: I’m interested, so, help me understand it, how should I feel, and how will it affect me and the people around me?

I can’t tell you how to react or feel.

Too often, modern media focuses entirely on the ‘how should I feel?’ And headline grabbers and selected images are constructed by skilled editors to exploit that aspect. Before you even read the article or watch/hear the news program, you’ve already been instructed how to feel – happy, sad, elated, deflated, angry and outraged, scared and terrified, defiant and brave: but sometimes the facts and reasons why you feel that way have already been lost before you began.

Self-editing-filters have become incredibly important today when consuming local, national and global news. If you don’t apply them, you get sucked in. It’s a particular problem with numerous social media platforms we all have access to. Bombarded with so much information from all angles, it’s no longer intuitive: it’s a skill and minefield that has to be learned and navigated.

I grew up in an era in the 1970s and 1980s when it was easier to filter and decipher through the news – the hype, bluff and the facts. An era when news came in chunks, morning, afternoon and evening. Time to filter out what was accurate and what wasn’t. Trust in media was greater in the general public. Newspaper journalists had more time to fact-check and get it right over many hours. TV and radio news often relied heavily on newsprint journalists to flesh-out a news story. Many journalists had to work across both platforms to earn a living. TV and radio news was essentially the immediate live news of the day, much like social media is today. But unlike then, there was still a degree of fact-checking and filters in place.

Today, a predominant amount of news is consumed on social media and it’s immediate, live or posted, not just within minutes, but seconds of events of public interest. We’ve seen countless times the value of this: a live document of what just happened exposing malpractice and criminality by those in authority, moments and events in our world – war and peace, the beautiful and cruel – that would never have been captured by a still camera for history.

But every image, video and story requires a context. It requires fact-checking. It requires filters that expose deliberate misrepresentation, slants, biases, opinions and sometimes that requires the suspension of emotion. Honesty and fairness must always come before emotion, even in journalism. Emotion can’t be the sole reason for an article or piece to be produced. The accuracy of its story must be told, no matter how joyous or uncomfortable without an imbalanced play made on any aspect.

For many reasons, journalists have had a difficult role in the past couple of decades. It’s a no-win situation. No doubt some abuse their appointed positions and instead of reporting become talking heads and opinion-makers. I also think a lot have forgotten the difference between using the skills taught to them about journalism or just reporting. Frankly, many out of media colleges aren’t even taught the basic core skills. Worse, an increasing number come from other media fields to TV and radio with absolutely zero skills, relying on a team of media researchers. They are not journalists, nor reporters. They are presenters. Your newspapers, TV and radio stations are full of them (I’m a doctor, a lawyer, a business person, a politician etc – listen to me).

I do my best to cut through much of the above. I can do furry kittens as easily as I do international conflicts. I can do sad as well as entertainment. There’s always a balance here and a filter.

What I don’t do is ignorance or ‘fingers-in-the-ears’ because it isn’t my world or your world.

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