Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T22:04:47.824Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Politics and Professionalism in Soviet Journalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas F. Remington
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Western ideal of journalistic objectivity, influenced by liberal principles of the rulers' accountability to the ruled and the empirical skepticism of science, developed as an occupational response by journalists to marketplace competition among commercially or politically motivated suppliers of information and came to define the journalist's professional ethic of impartiality and independence. At the same time the term professionalism must be used advisedly. Journalism is a field with some but not all of the attributes of a profession. By the usual tests of the freedom of the practitioners to govern entry and exit from the field, to possess an exclusive right to carry on their trade, and to set the standards of performance, journalists are not as autonomous as, for example, physicians and attorneys. If they sought to close the shop to outsiders or to set standards of writing and reporting, they would be infringing upon the prerogatives of “management”—editors and publishers.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , Fall 1985 , pp. 489 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Bernard Roshcoe, Newsmaking (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

2. This point is treated well by Anthony Smith in Goodbye Gutenberg: The Newspaper Revolution of the 1980s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 158-59.

3. See Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Vintage, 1979), pp. 281ff; also see George Comstock, Television in America (Beverly Hills, Calif, and London: Sage Publications, 1980), pp. 43-55. The concept of "structural" bias, in distinction to political bias, is originally that of Richard Hofstetter.

4. See, for example, A. V. Grebnev, "Sostavnaia chast' partiinoi raboty," in K. K. Barykin et al., eds., Problemy nauchnoi organizatsii zhurnalistskogo truda: ocherki teorii i praktiki (Moscow: Mysl', 1974), pp. 82-83.

5. V Zdorovega, "Tol'ko obshchimi usiliiami," Zhurnalist, no. 9 (1982): 54.

6. Chetvertyi s"ezd zhumalistov SSSR. 1-3 marta 1977 goda. Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Pravda, 1977), pp. 255-56 (hereafter Chetvertyi s"ezd).

7. V Shandra, "Na puti k professii," Zhurnalist, no. 7 (1982): 26; Zdorovega, "Tol'ko obshchimi usiliiami," p. 53.

8. Shandra, "Na puti k professii," p. 26.

9. The 9 kafedry are:

  1. 1.

    1. Theory and practice of the Soviet press,

  2. 2.

    2. Radio and television broadcasting,

  3. 3.

    3. Editing and publishing,

  4. 4.

    4. Technology of newspaper and mass literature publishing,

  5. 5.

    5. History of the Soviet press,

  6. 6.

    6. History of Russian journalism and literature,

  7. 7.

    7. Literary-artistic criticism,

  8. 8.

    8. History of foreign press and literature,

  9. 9.

    9. Russian stylistics.

10. All information derived from the Spravochnik dlia postupaiushchikh v moskovskii universitet(Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1978), pp. 40–43.

11. Nadezhda Azhgikhina, “Posviashchenie v diletanty?” Zhurnalist, no. 2 (1982): 26–29.

12. Sergeev, Aleksandr, “ ‘Segodnia ia zhurnalist.’ A Zavtra?” Zhurnalist, no. 2 (1982): 29–32.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 29.

14. The classic study of the importance of on-the-job occupational socialization is that of Warren Breed, “Social Control in the Newsroom,” Social Forces, 33 (May 1955): 326–35. Also see the pithyaphorism offered by Leon V. Sigal in his compact study Reporters and Officials: “Shop talk lays thebasis for consensus on news judgments.” Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics ofNewsmaking (Lexington, Kentucky: D. C. Heath, 1973), p. 46.

15. Spravochnik dlia postupaiushchikh, pp. 42–43.

16. On raspredelenie, see Matthews, Mervyn, Education in the Soviet Union (London: GeorgeAllen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 170–74.Google Scholar

17. Saburov, G., “I eto vazhno,” Zhurnalist, no. 12 (1982): 52.Google Scholar

18. Svitich, L. G. and Shiriaeva, A. A., Zhurnalist i ego rabota (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo MoskovskogoUniversiteta, 1979), p. 173.Google Scholar

19. Ibid.

20. Vladimir Ivanov, “Kto nauchit Vovu ‘plavat'?” Zhurnalist, no. 7 (1982): 27–28.

21. These figures are drawn from a variety of sources and represent the best estimates fromseveral conflicting assertions in the Soviet and Western literature. See the statement by A. Korshakov,Zhumalist, no. 8 (1983): 60; S. Fedotov, ‘Ne khochu chitat'sia neudachnikom,” Zhurnalist, no. 7(1983): 51–52; Evgenii Bakhanov, “ ‘Ballast’ po shtatu,” Zhurnalist, no. 5 (1983): 14–15; also seeLaszlo Revesz, Recht und Willkür in der Sowjetpresse: Eine presserechtliche und pressepolitische Untersuchung (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitätsverlag, 1974), pp. 201–202; and Bruno Kalnins,Agitprop: Die Propaganda in der Sowjetunion (Vienna, Frankfurt, Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1966),p. 102. Note that the estimates provided by Mervyn Matthews in Privilege in the Soviet Union(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978) are somewhat lower, with the income of the editor of arepublic newspaper estimated at 500–600 rubles and the base salary only 240 rubles (p. 26). Thesefigures seem low, particularly in view of the fact that Zhurnalist gives the base salary of a journaleditor as 350 rubles, a figure which may be increased to 500 rubles if he holds the doctor of sciencedegree. A. Korshakov, Zhurnalist, no. 8 (1983): 60.

22. A. G. Mendeleev, Chto za gazetnym slovom? (Moscow: Mysl', 1979), p. 22.

23. On career patterns of ideological specialists, see Joel C. Moses, “Functional Career Specializationin Soviet Regional Elite Recruitment,” in T. H. Rigby and Bohdan Harasymiw, eds.,Leadership Selection and Patron-Client Relations in the USSR and Yugoslavia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 19 and passim. On career backgrounds of senior communications elites, seeEllen Mickiewicz, “Policy Issues in the Soviet Media System,” in Hoffmann, Erik P., ed., The SovietUnion in the 1980s (New York: Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1984), vol. 35,no. 3, pp. 121–22Google Scholar; also Mickiewicz, “The Functions of Communications Officials in the USSR: ABiographical Study,” Slavic Review, 43, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 641–56.

24. Svitich and Shiriaeva, Zhurnalist i ego rabota, p. 127. Other possible responses included:excessive generalities, insufficient factual material (20 percent); ignorance of basic facts (18 percent);and unsuccessful literary form and surfeit of cliches (17 percent).

25. Ibid., pp. 52–53.

26. Ibid., p. 63.

27. Ibid., pp. 53–54.

28. Discussion summarized from Christine Kunze, Journalismus in der UdSSR (Munich: VerlagDokumentation Saur KG, 1978).

29. Ibid., p. 107.

30. Cited in Roth, Paul, ed., Die kommandierte öffentliche Meinung: Sowjetísche Medienpolitik(Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1982), pp. 186–87.Google Scholar

31. See Barghoorn, Frederick C., Politics in the USSR, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little Brown, 1972),pp. 123–26.Google Scholar

32. Roth, Die kommandierte öffentliche Meinung, p. 190.

33. Roth, Paul, Sow-Inform: Nachrichtenwesen und Informationspolitik der Sowjetunion (Diisseldorf:Droste Verlag, 1980), p. 174.Google Scholar

34. Analysis on the basis of the listing of members provided in Chertvertyi s “ezd.

35. Ibid., p. 73.

36. Ibid., p. 133.

37. Vladimir Korshunov, “Nash dom,” Zhurnalist, no. 3 (1982): 13.

38. Leonid Khmel'nitskii, “TPK nabiraet moshch',” Zhurnalist, no. 5 (1981): 21–22.

39. Dovlatov, Sergei, The Compromise, trans. Frydman, Anne (New York: Knopf, 1983)Google Scholar.

40. See nn. 6 and 7.

41. Gelman, Harry, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1984), p. 87 Google Scholar.

42. Lilita Dzirkals, Thane Gustafson, and A. Ross Johnson, The Media and Intra-Elite Communicationin the USSR, Rand Report no. R-2869, Santa Monica, Cal., September 1982, pp. 18–19, 49–50, and passim.

43. Shandra, “Na puti,” Zhurnalist, no. 7 (1982): 26.

44. S. I. Igoshin, “Pis'mo v sisteme organizatorskoi raboty sredstv massovoi propagandy,” Organizatorskaiafunktsiia pechati, radio, i televideniia, vyp. 10 (series “Problemy zhurnalistiki “) (Leningrad:Izdatel'stvo Leningradskogo Universiteta, 1979), p. 73.

45. Dzirkals et al., Media, p. 68.

46. S. M. Gurevich, “Partiinyi, tvorcheskii, proizvodstvennyi,” in K. K. Barykin et al., Problem)/nauchnoi organizatsii zhurnalistskogo truda: ocherki teorii i praktiki (Moscow: Mysl', 1974),p. 54; lu. A. Sherkovin, “Zhurnalist v redaktsionnom kollektive,” ibid., p. 76. A recent collectionof his writings is contained in A. Agranovskii, Detail i glavnoe: ocherki (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel',1982).

47. They are called “commentators with the right of free comment.” See Zaslavsky, Victor, TheNeo-Stalinist State (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpejgl), p. 178.Google Scholar

48. Peter Frank, University of Essex, personal communication, June 6, 1983.

49. See Dzirkals et al., Media, p. 46.

50. Valentin Kuznetsov, “Nenastoiashchie,” Zhurnalist, no. 8 (1983): 20–23.

51. New York Times, March 21, 1982. On the evolution of the role of Polish journalists, see theintroduction by Curry, Jane to The Black Book of Polish Censorship, trans, and ed. by LeftwichCurry, Jane (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp. 1–54.Google Scholar