“There is no opposition”, this sign was hanging in the editorial office of the pro-government media and showed that those who criticise authority in Kazakhstan must not be mentioned at all. The sign is considered a fake story told by journalists, but there’s some truth in it – Kazakhstan-based media practise self-censorship. CABAR.asia figures out why journalists become self-censors.
What is self-censorship?
Tamara Yeslyamova, publisher of “Uralskaya nedelya” newspaper (Uralsk week), believes that self-censorship is a condition of a person, when restrictions arise out of lack of confidence and fear within. As a result, the journalist fails to perform his/her professional duties in full.
According to Dmitry Dubovitsky, founder of the YouTube channel “Za nami uzhe vyyekhali” (zanamiviehali, translation: They are going to get us), self-censorship means “no involvement in explosive matters and topics sometimes.”
“Now Kazakhstan is going through the period of global distribution of assets. And so much confidential information is sent to direct messages in this difficult period – various allegedly compromising materials on ‘dinosaurs’ from ‘old’ and ‘new’ Kazakhstans. So far, we have decided not to cover such inbound topics, otherwise we can get into trouble and fall victim to information warfare between oligarchs. Is it self-censorship? It is, to some extent,” Dubovitsky said.
Is self-censorship bad?
Tamara Yeslyamova is concerned about self-censorship destroying journalism. “The consequence of self-censorship is destruction of trust to the media. And it is the saddest thing that can happen,” Yeslyamova said. “The foundation of the profession is undermined, there’s no trust, fake news fill the space, and content that meets superficial needs of the society appears. The country and the society lose heavily because of that. It influences social, economic spheres, cultures. If falsehood predominates, what can be expected from the society?”
Aleksandr Trukhachev, director of the metropolitan TV channel KTK, suggests that we should not confuse censorship with self-censorship. According to him, self-censorship is purely individual thing. “Self-censorship and journalistic ethics are two parallel things. All journalists who call themselves as such must have some self-censorship,” Trukhachev said.
According to him, there is a hyperbolised self-censorship, when a journalist speaks out vaguely, providing no facts or allegations, yet is afraid of oneself, and is afraid to say something wrong.
“But it comes from the lack of professionalism,” Trukhachev said and made an example, “When there is some controversial topic, but someone threatens to sue the journalist, an unexperienced or not very professional journalist could get scared and give up the story. And professional journalist will prepare the story with no legal issues in it.”
Editorial policy or self-censorship?
“Based on the context created by Kazakhstan-based journalists, there is self-censorship in Kazakhstan. There should be a distinction between so-called state media, where journalists know what can be and cannot be covered. There’s another media category, which belongs to private owners. Journalists there focus on what their owner wants: his/her values and views. They also have self-censorship,” Tamara Yeslyamova said.
No one has self-censorship in “Uralskaya nedelya”, according to the publisher. Journalistic principles are of utmost importance for our employees: “We have never had any forbidden topics or topics that would be said about ‘Let’s not cover it.’ We have always relied on proofs, documents, confirmation from three sources, and so on. The most important thing here is to be professional.”
According to Dmitry Dubovitsky, every media has self-censorship.
“If we speak about editorial ‘red flags’, we do have them. These ‘red flags’ are outlined either tacitly, or directly, ‘We can do this, and cannot do that. We praise these people, and do not touch others.’ And I had long believed it was quite a normal practice, which is the worst thing. But it is not a normal practice,” Dubovitsky said.
Aleksandr Trukhachev makes no secret that KTK has the editorial policy: “There are topics that we do not cover: some boring topics that are not interesting for our target audience. State TV channels would cover them without us.”
According to the speaker, editorial policy is the collective self-censorship. Once he talked about self-censorship with his colleagues from France, and he asked if companies there could criticise their shareholders and they said, ‘No.’ And he asked, ‘Isn’t is self-censorship?’, and they said, ‘No’ and explained it was the ‘editorial policy.”
“This is how market works,” said Aleksandr Trukhachev. “Every media outlet has their own sources of funding: groups of oligarchs, governmental structures, etc. Every given media outlet will have certain self-censorship related to the source of funding, when a journalist cannot criticise those who pay wages.”
Dmitry Dubovitsky admitted that he does not know where personal self-censorship ends and ‘editorial policy’ begins.
“Here are too many nuances,” Dmitry said. “’We do not cover protests in Zhanaozen, as this is the editorial policy.’ ‘We cover the position of oil workers, the state and KazmunaiGaz – and it is a normal journalistic approach’. ‘We cover only oil workers because truth is on their side,’ this is self-censorship blended with activism.”
Dubovitsky said that he asked the same question to Yury Dud, when he was not a YouTube star, but the chief editor of Sports.ru. Dmitry noticed that Sports.ru sometimes had biases related to some topics. For example, in the conflict of two football coaches, five stories could be published to protect one coach, and only one in favour of another coach.
“’Yury, why is it so? This is not objective’. And Dud said to me, ‘Yes, sometimes we are too biased, yet we are not boring,’” said Dubovitsky.
Do we need to struggle with self-censorship?
According to Aleksandr Trukhachev, self-censorship should not be coped with, “If self-censorship is reasonable and healthy, it is a necessary and useful thing.”
Dmitry Dubrovsky follows the “do no harm” principle.
“Last year, I buried or postponed several interviews regarding the future of the Russian language in Kazakhstan. It raised political, ideological issues, problems of the Kazakh language, lack of single registers, weak methodological base and many other things. Why did I postpone them? We are experiencing a painful context – the war between Russia and Ukraine and catalysation of the process of nation-building, when the audience takes many things too emotionally,” Dubovitsky said.
According to Tamara Yeslyamova, she struggles with self-censorship every day: neither she, nor journalists of ‘Uralskaya nedelya” were born without fear, otherwise, it would be something abnormal.
“I always talk to myself,” Yeslyamova described the whole process. “In my case, professionalism overcomes fears. But it is difficult, so I cannot blame those who choose self-censorship.”
She notices that lack of self-censorship has its price, “All forms of pressure, unfair and illegal court decisions, ruinous fines, defamation and attacks on journalists – and even more happened to ‘Uralskaya nedelya’. Authorities used all means available to them.”
To overcome self-censorship both parties should be involved – both journalists and authorities, said Tamara Yeslyamova.
“Our authorities try to have control over everything – they distrust us and impose various restrictions. They should stop experimenting with the media law and give journalism its estate in our society as independent fourth power. Until then, it is the area of unfreedom. What can arise in it?” the journalist wondered. “Only fear. Now there’s understanding that there is nothing scarier for the political regime than free press.”
Main photo: Freepik
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