LAIKU ATŠALKAS: ŽURNĀLISTIKA, KINO, POLITIKA - Academia

LAIKU ATŠALKAS: ŽURNĀLISTIKA, KINO, POLITIKADr Skaidrīte LasmaneSenior researcher, University of Latvia, Department of Communications StudiesA DIFFERENT TRIAD: INTELLECT, ETHICS, THE SELFKeywords: Quality of communications, the self of the journalism, conjuncturism, ethics, autonomyThere have not been more thorough discussions with Ābrams Kleckins, who is an experiencedjournalist and colleague. That has been for two reasons. First of all, the everyday lives of academicsare filled with situative issues that must be addressed in collegial terms. Second, time mustpass before the need for scholarly discussions appears in Latvia together with the understandingof new values in professional journalism. There have only been some initial discussions aboutthe self, intellectualism and ethics of journalists, along with talk about other issues which relateto high-quality journalism and are practical, but actually important.Recognising that media products are, in contextual terms, a social construct, the author hasoffered reflections about the opportunities and limits of journalism in the totalitarian system andtoday, reaching agreement between pragmatic desires and intellectual and ethical values. Shehas analysed the concept of conjuncturism, discussing its manifestations and separating betweentwo types of opposition – direct and radical critique of governing thoughts, as well as indirectopposition that is manifested via the search for other intellectual and promising subjects andframeworks. The author has emphasised the important role of the self in the work of journalists,seeking out an answer to the question of whether it is possible to ensure a discourse of potentialityor ideals and how the existence or absence of this discourse affects journalism and thepublic at large. The author has made use of the work of Jean-Paul Sartre about engagement andauthenticity, the arguments of Simone de Beauvoir about the ethics of double meaning, and theviews of Marcel Gauchet about the future of journalism as a form or art which creates valuableand socially useful information and other conclusions.216