The grant was quite open, the only term was that it was to be spent in one of the countries Norway was working with in the region. It is the ideal situation for a reporter, someone saying: " go make some story in West Africa". Yet I felt a bit uneasy, as my attitude is that as journalists should have no links to organizations or people we report directly on. In this case I really don't think we would've done much, if anything differently, if the money come from a newspaper. Still I couldn't rid myself of feeling I had crossed a line. So I decided not to accept such a grant again. Ever.
Well, that was then...Fast forward four years and I applied for a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And I got it. I took it. I am shortly going to Thailand, partly for Norwegian taxpayers money. So what as changed?
2009 has been an "Annus horribilis" for media, and a lot has changed in our industry. It has left me thinking about the options left in order to do the kind of reporting that interests me and that I think is important journalistically. It is apparent changes needs to be made for journalism to adapt, simply to survive, in this new landscape. So does this mean I have to lower my standards, do we have to "adapt" our morality as well? I wish I could say a firm "NO!" to that. But my conclusion is a resigned "yes".
It seems to me the media as a whole has given up on many of the ethical standards that used to be considered core values in the business. "Content is king" is a worn out catch frase, now replaced by "Free is king". Or better yet "Free content is king". Even the Norwegian union newspaper Journalisten now prefer to use pictures from Flickr, microstock etc, which allow them to use pictures for free (or virtually for free), rather than to give even their own union members priority, follow union tariffs and pay reasonably. This is true for other union magazines as well. When even the unions abandon their values and members, what does that say about the business climate today?
Or when a Norwegian magazine, officially on the left politically, offered me a fraction of the asking price for a story I made in Kashmir because "that is what we would normally be paying a local freelancer in Iraq for such a story"? The same magazine will write about foreign construction workers in Norway being paid less than minimum wage, how they are being exploited as well as how this is undermining the Norwegian workers rights and salaries. And they don't see the irony...
Some of my colleagues have indicated I have been naive about the idealism and ethics in journalism. I am starting to think they may be right: It would seem no one in this industry is giving a shit any more, if you pardon my French.
These days no one is thinking twice about accepting money from the government to afford writing about what the government does. It turns out pretty much all Norwegian media apply for grants, especially if it means getting on a plane to see what the Minister of the Environment and International Development is up to. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of the most generous donors around.
I'd like to think I still give a shit. I still believe there are a number of rules that should govern the way we work as journalists. But on this issue I raise the white flag! I give up. So from now on I will apply for grants that I previously would not have considered. However, unlike most of my colleagues, I will make sure all pictures taken with the help of grants will leave my computer with a reference to the funding. (Such as in this example from Sierra Leone.) I don't know if it matters much, or just makes me feel better. Come to think of it, I am not even sure it makes me feel all that much better.
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