Press Release
Aleksey Korsunsky Thanks the Paul Klebnikov Fund for Journalism Fellowship
December 2006
During the time of my university study, I worked internships and jobs of various type and standing. All this allows a comparison of attributes from one to another. And, likely this type of comparative approach to analyzing the CBS Television internship will be the most appropriate.
Philosophical Findings
While I was still traveling to Moscow, I knew that nothing would be able to prevent me from completing at the internship one very important task, after which it was already possible to count the trip as a success. This task was not a practical, but of a philosophical nature. I was interested to know how the people who talked about Russia to the entire world viewed Russia. And that which the CBS Moscow International provided was more valuable than my greatest expectations. All this should help to view our reality from another side, which for any journalist is very important.
When I returned home, I compared myself from up until the time of the internship, until afterwards. It seems to me that the direction I had to take, not only in my journalism career but also in my life, took clearer shape inside my mind. This, not only I noticed, but also my friends who met me early in the morning at the Moscow train station in Petersburg, when I went home.
Journalistic Findings
On the screen there is one singularity: that across it would not be shown expressive means always one and the same. In the film Triumph of the Will, by Leni Riefenstahl and in the film Schindler's List, by Stephen Speilberg, use panoramas, interiors, and associative montage, black-and-white representation and still more similar techniques. But they only tell about different things.
This entire month at the Moscow office of CBS I tried to grasp how television that is done not for narrow-minded sphere of political figures, not for the brainwashing of the population, but for ordinary people. As it turns out such television exists.
It seems that this internship helped me to really understand that this type of journalistic approach to news, impartial, objective, is directed at showing every facet of events.
The story of the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London confirms this all the more. This was a week of a media cacophony. Much of the mass media from the specificity of this story began to practice speculation. Some of the British media were unduly emotional, that it seemed to resemble panic. The majority of Russians divided into two camps: the first was a mouthpiece of the Kremlin, the second was ready to believe that Vladimir Putin himself slipped the poison into Alexander Litvinenko's tea.
During this time at the Moscow bureau of CBS, we continued to collect points of view. The discourse about this was that the subject goes to the air if there isn't any kind of bias, and there couldn't be any. At first we sought out old comrades of Alexander Litvinenko, who preached the official point of view, and then Andrey Lugovoy. This is how we gathered episodes for the reportage, in which we did not include any speculation or emotional facts. The reportage contained a juxtaposition of points of view without any emotional conclusions from the journalist. Viewers received information in place of gossip. Isn't this really how journalism should be? Is it really very complicated?
All month I watched 8 editions of Russian TV news per day, then read the International Herald Tribune and Moscow Times and chatted with Beth, David, Aleksey and Svetlana in the kitchen about what I had seen and heard. Three main permanent channels showed a different country, different people and different problems. There was delusional insanity on the air. I knew that all this existed, but the extent of analysis ahead of the details sent me into a slight state of shock. Yet the recipe for good news is so simple.
Television Findings
When we first went on a shooting, I saw such technicality I had only read about in magazines. And yet I had worked already at more than one television company before arriving at the CBS Moscow bureau. HDcam, which surpasses the material and edits faster than the cassette-platforms dedolight and kinoflo which are used in Russia mainly in shooting films, the narrow directional microphone, which does not occupy the hands of the journalist when it's necessary to write down important details. Even the vehicle was made specifically for the TV crew.
I will have to take an exam on television technology, but I missed a part of the lesson. After my internship with CBS I will not survive the exam. The professor certainly has read about the new technology in magazines, but I will be able to say that I have already worked with it.
Shooting and editing on American TV is not the same as on Russian TV. CBS differentiates itself with more freedom toward arrangement and shooting: less statistical plans, more movements, more large-scale details, completely different perspective on shooting an interview. Most interestingly, the place joining the sequence of frames is considered bad taste in Russia.
All this pointed me to the sense that when I return and start to work, I will definitely try out these techniques — even more so due to the fact that some of the programs on the old independent NTV used similar methods to CBS. It's a shame that these programs were discontinued.
I was also not accustomed to the organization of work at CBS, but it seemed to me more sound and logical — for instance, the overlapping of the producer and sound engineer. One Aleksey Kuznetzov at CBS does two jobs at once. This allows to economize on space in the vehicle and on money for other expenses. There were many such rational examples, I always thought, 'Why didn't we do it this way in the places where I worked?'
General Personal Findings
The greatest luck of all was not that I watched Western mass media, new instrumentation, nor that I twice stood near the president or went to Kremlin meals. The greatest luck was that I got to know wonderful people. For a good while, I worried as I sat in the train heading towards Moscow that, in the unknown bureau of the unknown television company could be know-it-alls or impassible cynics or only god knows who else. It turned out that affable and kind people work at the CBS bureau. I never expected that they would receive me so well. I hope that somewhere I would meet them again, or perhaps even work together. In the meantime I will remember our conversations in the kitchen.
Future Career Findings
After one week at the internship I wanted to start working. After two weeks at the internship I wanted to start working even more. At the end this wish turned into a fixed idea, finding out how much out of everything, it was necessary to immediately buckle down in the internship. Now I have sessions at the University, but I am alleviating the suffering with my thesis project. I only have to shoot a special report. And after exams I will search for a spot in the sun in the Petersburg mass media, and stake the path ahead. I know better now which road to follow.
Advice for Future Internships
When I returned from Moscow, I was so emotional, I continually told everyone about the internship. It seems up until now to be ideal. I spent a maximum amount of time at the office and never tired of it whatsoever. This was neither work nor an internship. This was true recreation. During my free time I went to the movies and to museums, but I wanted to return more quickly to the bureau.
It seemed that I would forget how to play the guitar during this month, but as it turned out, there was even a guitar in the bureau and I had time to play and not lose the ability.
I didn't regret anything perhaps but time. We had only just become accustomed to one another. It seems that I would need not three months, but at least half a year to be able to say that I learned everything about the working of CBS.
It seems that the internship relies mostly on the people who work in mass media. The CBS team did so much for me.
However I understand how much my opinion matters for the Paul Klebnikov Fund. As I am writing this report I am running through in my head everything that took place during the past month. I endeavored to think in depth as much as possible how to improve that which seems ideal. I will only be sure that the advice will really be practical, certainly I will write a letter.
***
All this time I did not give up one thing. I became sad as I sat alone in my room in Moscow and thought about how I ended up in this internship, and about what preceded this. I remember over two years ago we gathered with fellow students at the university the day following Paul's killing. This was a shock for everyone. Unfortunately, it was not the last of such meetings. Since this time some of my classmates entered into the profession. Day to day journalism in Russia became worse and worse. It seems the spirit of the profession has been forgotten. Few people now talk of the genuine value of journalism. Those few who work for journalism's future are so valuable, continuing the same work for which Paul Klebnikov died. I believe that sometime, not one journalist will fear for his life while printing his latest material. I will be happy to live in such a place!
Many Thanks!
Aleksey Korsunsky
