JOURNALISM IMPARTIALITY: HOW TO WRITE ABOUT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

Existing journalistic standards are designed to prevent conflicts within society. In particular, this concerns the standard of balance of opinions, points of view, which implies the need to «give the floor to all parties to the conflict and reflect their positions, while the journalist himself must be as impartial as possible». Specifying of this standard, experts advise to avoid a false balance to consult with professional experts and to refuse altogether from writing material in case of lack of information. The standard of separation of facts from comments is also designed to convey the most unbiased information, where the position of the journalist himself, if any, is presented separately from the information presented.

However, the journalist is a part of this culture of perception of the world that exists in this society. the consequence of the above is, in our opinion, that the journalist is not aware of the presence of his own prejudices, and therefore it is quite difficult for him to avoid them.

Prejudice against Protestant religious communities has deep historical roots. Thus, in the Russian Empire, Protestants were forbidden to carry out missionary activities in relation to the Orthodox population. Both in imperial times and in Soviet times, the «struggle against sects» was relevant, which usually meant any deviations from the dominant religion/ideology. The Soviet authorities added to this active anti-religious propaganda with the help of cinematography. A vivid example of such propaganda is, in particular, the tape «Clouds over Borsk», where Pentecostal Protestants are presented as a group that makes human sacrifices.

Conducted field studies prove the stability of such ideas. Thus, among the Orthodox, there is a widespread opinion about the «exorcism» of Pentecostals, not knowing the denominational affiliation of Protestants («probably not Christians») and even ideas about human sacrifices.

The questions raised in this investigation relate, firstly, to the presence/absence of extrapolation of similar ideas to individual journalistic materials devoted to sensitive religious topics. Secondly, we are trying to find out in what way it is possible to create unbiased journalistic material on religious topics. For this purpose, an analysis of the material for compliance with journalistic standards and an interview with the journalist – the author of the material, were conducted.