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“Visa” for a Cover Page
For These days it is really difficult to hear some good news. Both the printed and the electronic media are full of information about bad, negative things. Unfortunately, this does not characterize just the last few days, and in my opinion it is becoming a trend in Macedonia. 
I would not like to be misunderstood that I do not agree with how the anomalies are presented in front of the public, on the contrary, I consider this media role absolutely necessary. The fact that provokes me is the unequal attitude towards the positive and the negative stories. In this occasion I would reflect upon that unequal attitude concerning our, non-governmental sector. It seems to me that the things which have a positive effect are quite irrelevant for the media, that those are just common, everyday activities of some NGOs and so what?
In one discussion on this issue that has taken place recently, someone said that we are in such condition because the good news cannot sell the newspapers to the readers, that is, they cannot sell the advertising space in the electronic media. It is hard for me to understand that our citizen does not want to hear or read about good news. And I can even less understand the fact that after all that we have been through, we are still not fed up with murders, suicides, criminal, maltreating, robberies, manipulations…So then why everyone says that they hope for the better?! Do they lie?! Are they bluffing?!
I do not believe! I cannot believe that we want more bad things, darkness, that we have not had enough. I must not forget the people around me who have had enough of it all. The question, which rises now, is how to make the good news reach the right place, or any place in the media.
In the course of this month I was especially fascinated by the last week’s top-issue, the students’ leader elections, which were conducted by the civic association called Students Council at the “St. Cyril and Methodius” University. The non-political and non-profitable umbrella-organization uniting the basic student organizations from the 23 faculties at the University in Skopje, these days has become the most popular NGO in Macedonia.
However, in this occasion, I would leave aside the reasons for their popularity, that is, the regularity or the irregularity of their elections, the possible interference of some political parties in the elections’ results, the undermined University’s “autonomy” and so on.
What I would like to talk about in just a few words is the media relation with this type of news, on one hand, and so to speak, the regular, more or less positive news that come from the NGOs on the other. I believe that the SCCMU (Student Council at the St. Cyril and Methodius University) has so far done some positive things for the students, has implemented activities, which without doubt have had a positive response if not with all then with the most of the students. However, those activities were not been interesting enough for the wider public to find out about them. The news, which raised the SCCMU to the level of media spectacle referrer to one, extremely negative thing, the irregularity in the implementation of the presidential elections procedure in the future Macedonian academic citizens organization, that is, the possible interference of the two largest political parties and the information about the presence of “racketeers”, which implies a possible violence…
This magic formula has brought the organization on the front pages, the electronic media placed it in their news, they have even reported from the “field”, it became as important as the news regarding the security condition in the country as well as those concerning the public affairs reported to us daily.
I do not agree with the fact that there is not any good news. There might not be as many as the bad ones, however, even those that exist, deliberately or not, have been forgotten by our “opinion-makers”. For instance, only two media have reported on the signing of the agreement for implementation of the two NGOs’ program whose budget amounts a little more that one million Canadian dollars, although all of them have been invited and informed. This is one of the good, but forgotten, or better said, neglected news that unfortunately, the public, thanks to the media, did not become familiar with since they decided to create a different “opinion”. In this occasion, I will refrain myself from mentioning all the other known and unknown events.
I was wondering how we should react. Shall we pay? We cannot and we should not get involved into news commercialization as a journalistic genre. And not all of us have means to do it all the time. Is it absolutely necessary to create scandals in order to gain some space? How can we present good news with a scandal? Shall we choose another method then? Shall we present our good news applying the globalization opponents’ methods?! Thus we will be noticed. Would it be attractive enough if we found a pink whale in the waters of Vardar? Maybe then the reporters will rush and turn on their cameras.
The selection of negative news creates a negative image with every reader, listener or viewer. Ignoring creates no image at all. Is that the truth? Does our civic society lack qualities and positive sides worth being known by the broader public? Of course it does not. We should only make the actors who are building the public opinion realize that.
Gonce Jakovlevska
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