Background

Ekaterina Chistyakova is interviewed here by Craig Branham, Doctoral Candidate at Saint Louis University, about her project and the experience of researching it.

CB: Are there a lot of differences between the Ukrainian news media and the U.S. media?

EC: Oh certainly. The media in the former Soviet Union was completely different because it was so heavily censored. And I still think of the Ukrainian media even now being very dependent on the government. The major channels are still owned by the government, so I don't think freedom of speech and freedom of the press are considered as important there as they are here. Certainly the Ukrainian journalists don't have nearly as excellent equipment as stations here have. The style of coverage seems a little out-dated and a little on the boring side in Ukraine, while here it's all "quick, quick, quick. . ." and after three minutes, we know what's happening in the world.

CB: Do you think there is a trade-off there, though? Aren't there some advantages to longer coverage?

EC: Oh, definitely. I'm not going to glorify the American media at all. But if I had a choice whether to work here in the American media or in the Ukraine, I would work for an American broadcasting company. It seems to me that there are more ways to make a story objective and fair, less control over what you do. And to be honest with you, more money.

CB: In the middle of your paper you talk about survey results saying that "64% of Americans think that the news is too sensationalized. The respondents said that there wasn't enough good news covered in local and national newscasts." What is your opinion about that?

EC: Well, I don't believe in the statement that "If it bleeds, it leads," that news has to be only about crime. I believe that people have a right to know about what's going on, whether it's good or bad; but at the same time I know that there has been so much negativity and so much skepticism and cynicism in the news that I can uderstand why those people say that. But at the same time it is all so related because people want to know about the sensational events. As I said in the paper, even though the respondents said that the news was too sensationalized, and there were too many crime stories, even a larger percentage said, "Yeah, but we want to know what's going on."

CB: One thing that comes up in your paper is the idea of "the public's right to know." What do you think the public has a right to know?

EC: I have very strong opinions about that because I grew up in a country where news was so heavily censored and the way that the people in the Soviet Union were treated makes me so mad, so I believe that people have a right to know about everything that affects them. When you set a limit on what people have a right to know, you have censorship, and to me that is a very evil thing. As for stuff like the paparazzi and tabloid news, well, people don't have the right to know about everyone's private life. But if we're talking about a politician it's different. When someone runs for office they pretty much put themselves into public light. They have to expect to lose their privacy because this is just the way it is, and if they decide to run for public office, privacy is just something they have to give up. So if an issue concerns people, then they have a right to know.

CB: Then where do you draw the line between "the public's right to know" and ...

EC: A person's right to privacy?

CB: Well no, I was thinking, the public interest. How does one distinguish between what the public just wants to know and what the public has a right to know?

EC: That's a good question. I think people have the right to know about everything that directly affects them or their families, their communities, etc. Everything else is just simple human curiosity.

CB: To get back to your paper, you were looking at the press as a "discourse community," which I understand to mean that they have a lot of their own specialized language and ways of interacting. When you turn on the radio or t.v. you find certain conventional ways of communicating which you hear nowhere else.

I notice that at the end of your paper you talk about the ways that "tragic" stories are covered. I recently heard an interview with a reporter in which he said that one of his cardinal rules for news reporting was to never use the word "tragic" to describe a situation, because if the report is done responsibly enough, the tragic nature of the event would be obvious to someone reading it.

EC: That's a good point.

CB: Do you ever think that the use of words like "tragedy" in the press affect the way we look at "tragic' events?

EC: No, I really don't think so. I think that words like "tragedy" and others are clichés used in the media that you get sick of, but I don't think that affects the way we perceive the word "tragedy."

CB: But don't you think it affects the way we think about a "tragic" story to have a cliché attached to it?

EC: Not really. If you are the person outside of the community of reporters I don't think it would affect you because you don't think of it as a cliché. You see, when I, as a reporter, listen to another reporter's story, I pay attention to the choice of words, etc. But an average person (and I know I am generalizing here, but bear with me) just listens to get the information, so that they probably won't think of these words as clichés.