A long day and a strange meeting (11/09/05)

We're standing in a hallway just outside the newsroom at Gazeta Slonimskaya, the independent newspaper of the city of Slonim in Belarus.

And we're taking a break from one of the odder press development meetings I've had since I started doing this sort of work.

Someone, for reasons that still aren't clear, thought it would be a good idea to have a joint meeting between the staff of the independent newspaper and the staff of the local government newspaper. Actually, we'll have two meetings together, in spite of the fact that the two papers are bitter rivals.

The first meeting, the one we're taking a break from, involves the full staff of Gazeta Slonimskaya and four visiting members of the editorial staff of the government newspaper. In a couple of hours, we'll walk up the street and meet with the full staff of the government newspaper, including the local chief of ideology, with four members of the independent newspaper staff sitting in.

It's a crazy arrangement, but I'm trying to make the best of it.

The editor of the government newspaper keeps insisting that her newspaper is completely self-sufficient, even though almost all the subscriptions are involuntary and all the advertising comes from state-owned businesses which are required to advertise in the state’s paper and prohibited to advertise in the independent paper.

Before I can argue that point during the break, a smug young member of her staff strolls up.

He's been listening to the earlier discussion about press freedom and independence, but he's been listening to it through his own filter.

As I understand it, he says, there's really no such thing as an independent press. Don't you agree?

No. I don't agree.

He tries again.

Let's say a friend of yours got in trouble, then came to you and asked you to keep it out of the paper, he says. You'd do that, wouldn't you? So you wouldn't be independent, right?

But I wouldn't keep it out of the paper, I say.

He looks skeptical and says: Even if he cries on your shoulder?

Then he's not a very good friend, I respond. Friends don't try to manipulate one another that way.

Besides, it's not my fault he got in trouble.

The smug young guy from the government paper isn't buying it.

Look, I say, my responsibility in a situation like that isn't to the guy who claims to be my friend, it's to my readers. It's to the truth.

My argument bounces off.

The smug guy thinks for a moment, then says with authority: As I understand it, you don't have any friends.

And I think of home and I smile.

And I tell myself it's going to be a long, long day.[[In-content Ad]]