Journalism is not Screen Writing for Fans, it’s about Truth

I have chosen to address the New York Times out of respect for journalism and for the profession that has sustained me in the last 30 years. It is with sadness that I read a story published in the NYT this week under the following title: “We Are Like Animals’: Inside Greece’s Secret Site for Migrants” on March 10, 2020.

I will refrain from commenting as a Greek, as a reader, as a US citizen, and as a believer in impartial press, and will instead focus on the following: throughout my 30-year career in journalism, there has been one dogma that has rung in my mind strongly every time I wrote (and still write) a title or approve of a title, subtitle, and photo caption: “Is this an objective truth or is this trying to create impressions”?

That said, if one distances himself enough, he (or she) will see that the March 10 title is very poor, to say the least, lacking evidence that would support such a claim; a claim of “extrajudicial tactics Greece is using to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis” as added in the subtitle.

Instead, the story cites evidence as provided — how exactly one might ask — “through a combination of on-the-ground reporting and forensic analysis of satellite imagery” through which “The Times has confirmed the existence of the secret center in northeastern Greece”.

I will also like to suggest that the reporters writing the story were perhaps ‘carried away’ into writing about a “secret site” failing to check their facts — rule #1 in journalism and reporting.

In addition to this, the leading sentence appears to resort to a sort of de facto reporting despite the many sides, factors, circumstances, laws, countries, politics, and human histories involved in the obviously complex migrant/immigration crisis affecting, afflicting, and concerning all of Europe.

At this point and in view of readers’ limited time, I will simply note that what goes into story titles, subtitles, and captions demonstrates the professionalism and ethos of the writer(s), the editors, and the media. These three article features serve as a shop display of sorts that attracts the reader to your product. Is it quality, trust, credibility, and reliability that you wish to be known for? Or short-term, cinema-style, special effects that trigger an adrenaline rush but have no substance to keep readers going after that?

If there is one thing our world needs at this very moment in time; a time of quarantines and viruses, of panic and fear, a time of sadness for people on all sides and in all predicaments, it is the truth. And the truth, all journalists know deep down, is never a rigid, black and white piece of information; it’s the well-presented pieces of information that will stimulate readers into thinking for themselves, piecing the puzzle together, and then perhaps allowing space in their minds and hearts for compassion and understanding. Only then can we claim to be journalists and writers contributing a small bit to change.

With respect,

Maria Paravantes