Huidu, Teo, Anania, Ridzi…

I believe time has come for journalism school books that unceasingly peach the rules of laws of a profession that no one still understand to adjust their contents. Just like that, to adjust, cut off, be honest and openly say what reportage is today, what is the purpose of a newscast, how information should be delivered, how a show should be moderated and so on. In Journalism Schools they should no longer teach the gaudy lies, nicely wrapped in professional ethics, with scholarly references to "BBC”-logy, „CNN”-logy, or professors that still speak of the nobility of the profession, of the society's watchdog, the fourth power in the state, etc., etc...

In a world where truth would stand any chance, students should be taught manipulation techniques, methods of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, just as they should develop performance, theatrical and circus skills. Each student should be, at graduation, beyond good and evil so that he can unscrupulously adapt to the “headline”, the “trust policy” or “demands of the audience”. Doctor's degrees in media blackmail, journalistic sophism and the art of showing that Monday is actually Friday would naturally follow.

These are the thoughts that come up to mind these days, when my vulnerability as to everything that is TV information seems to have increased worryingly. Let us take, for example, the formidable preference that news televisions shown to VIPs with health issues. It seems to me that the “classical” interest in death (see Mădălina Manole's case or all sorts of crimes – love crimes, third degree crimes, accidental crimes, predestination crimes) asked for finer nuances, for updates, in hovering over illness regarded, of course, like a antechamber to death.

The year ended and began with Şerban Huidu. He was now struggling between death and life, then feeling great, later with standing minimum chances, later maximum. The topic was, they couldn’t help it, developed. “What was he doing skiing in Austria; that's what he gets for not staying at home”, some said. “Austrians are not good with tourism! That was no ski slope! Why was there an ice layer?” other wondered. “I told him it would end in tears!” was the Cassandra's sigh on one of the victims of the  Cârcotaşi Show. “It's no good, mister, Romanian hospitals are down the drain. He was so lucky to have had the accident in Austria!”, added one of the fighters on the barricades of Romanian medical system. The news, easily to sum up in five lines and, possible, to be conclusively completed with some other three, turned into a true show. Huidu was the protagonist of a tragedy directed from the studios, with anchors for coryphaeus and a whining choir made up by countless opinion leaders. “Grief” reached such height that, on some occasions, “specialists” already spoke in the past tense. The screens ran images of Huidu in various moments of his life, in an exceptional display of an atmosphere of national mourning.

Still, that was not enough. Right after New Year's Eve, another great ill of the country thrilled the media: Teo Trandafir, whose “acute pancreatitis” become infinitely more important than the usual issues of the economic field. Tears again, another hospital in Austria, the system was under criticism again, some more wailing, another succession of images, some more angels descended from Heaven, Adrian Sârbu, the former Pro Tv boss, was on again, with some advertisement for sponsoring the hospitalisation. Even Teo's father, seduced by the humanity forced in by televisions, spoke in lucid tenderness of the case.

The other days, Bartolomeu Anania the Cluj Bishop found reasonable to no longer feel well in this miserable and ephemeral world. Like hungry jackals, televisions bore down upon him for shots, TV studios filled with theosophist, doctors, free thinkers, and Austria got fixed with yet another luxury patient.

Eventually, just when the weekend began, without abandoning the previously presented cases but somehow experienced now in such topics, the makers of the Romanian news found another ill person sufficiently important to be transported to Austria and, therefore, make the news: Monica Iacob Ridzi. It no longer matter that at the time when she was undergoing a penal investigation and got hospitalised most televisions “revealed” how the former minister is trying to “elude” investigation!

What is there to add? May Lord give health to the sick and more wisdom to those trying to bury them! For in life we need both health and wisdom...