Talking with everyone is part of a journalist’s training

Once that president-elect, whoever it may be, is chosen in two weeks, we will have gotten past one of the “excuses” for postponing perhaps the most important journalistic practice, that of talking with absolutely everyone who comes our way. The way the country is divided — which does not apply to Paraná, given the governor’s reelection and the anti-PT vote for President —, we easily fall into the fallacy that it is better to leave that controversial subject for later, for after this, for beyond that.

We journalists, perhaps, have allowed ourselves the luxury of elitist choices. When the word “elite” emerges in scientific articles on political communication, a little demon whispers in our gatekeeper ears: “you made it in life, you earned it, you are elite.” The demon is not necessarily wrong; it often tells us more reasonable things than the psychiatrist. To make oneself or be elite, however, would give us an inflexible role, more Queen Elizabeth than Winston Churchill. Either way, who will talk to those who do not enter the palace?

During elections, disaster coverage, carnivals and all sorts of falsely urgent subjects, we are tempted or coerced to sacrifice the anthropological work, the investigation, of asking “how does this thing you are telling me happen?”

The questions of the lead, the famous “what, who, how, when, where and why,” can be answered by well-trained artificial intelligences. Some newsroom activities are so mechanized that advanced sites have replaced reporters with robots — which I think is very good. Well tensioned, Newsmaking theory can account for that change. But that does not meet the need for recognition and participation of the people who read or watch us. The public stage we strive to keep standing has no legs other than ours, ears and intelligences other than ours.

The first task to complete, after the elections, however they turn out, is to visit everyone, everyone, those WhatsApp uncles in the family group, unbearable online and lovable as Saint Mary when present in the flesh. We must take their phone calls, let them explain why they believe the Supreme Federal Court works to destroy life, why they believe that measly little lot seventeen blocks from the beach will be “invaded” by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), but, mainly, why they no longer believe what you and I write, record or present. And when they tell us it is because “the media is all bought,” we will ask: “don’t be upset, uncle, but how does that happen?”

Let me write a little in a solemn Bible tone.

Little children, do not practice the cult of lack of time. That belongs to professions less important and less prestigious than yours. Never answer “today, I can’t go to Basset Lanches with my friends’ friends,” and never avoid hearing the same story for the fiftieth time. If a story withstands fifty repetitions it must be good. It is abominable, in any case, that professional success should end in unavailability to go to university, to art exhibitions, or to sit in a different circle where one is not the owner of the truth.

End of the biblical challenge.

Then it gets complicated, sitting in a different circle where one is not the owner of the truth, because, to some extent, we are forced to widen our frames of reference. And that would make us lose the role of “judge of the news.” We must recognize the little Sergio Moro who lives in each of us, to stop him from missing the mark, stop him from feeding himself and carrying out Operation Car Wash 2. We must categorically forbid ourselves from devouring the State with farofa. In the end, the WhatsApp uncle and we journalists have at least this in common: we do not like to feel deceived or underestimated.

When I refer to journalists, I write about the group I consider my professional community. I write, as a testimony of sobriety, from myself. Because I could only criticize in the “other” (to be a little Habermasian) what I was aware was criticizable, or, further, my criticism could stem from my personal flaws. Or various other variations. But with or without self-criticism, without or with the best way of telling our peers that these criticisms are a bitter medicine for our professional future, we are on the same Titanic of the news.

In the there and then of the past, each generation of reporters was told: “a reporter’s place is in the street.” The idea was that news was where there was life, where there were buses and poles disrupting taxpayers’ lives, in the crowds of political or union demonstrations. You go out to write about a summer camp, and come back muddy doing a live from a flood. What a great profession!

In the here and now, I reinforce: a reporter’s place is in all the streets, in any space one can enter. Why did the dog go into the church? Because the door was open. Wherever there are people, wherever there are conversations about trouble sleeping, about cholesterol levels, where they are talking about watercolor painting, about the influence of sea-wave measurements on the formation of shells, right where the “extremes” are (lovable as Saint Mary), in academic discussion, on the internet, of course, at family parties, there must be a journalist who is interested in human life. If a presenter can resolve a family imbroglio, he can handle anything on air.

This text is an invitation to one of the foundations of journalists’ training, interpersonal relations. It is by listening without prejudice that we rearrange the kaleidoscope of the world, that we feel that fresh, perfumed air of what is new, that we free ourselves from bubbles that smell of cage. It is among peers that we test the ideas in our heads, find the first resistances or clear oppositions, mature what is not ripe enough.