Media Governance and Industries Lab Blog

“Journalists are facing a very calculated attack on their own core values, all over the world and the public has clear signs of apathy, negligence, and indifference.”

Interview with veteran journalist Adi Krasta

By Gentiana Ramadani

One of the veteran journalists in post-communist Albanian media, Adi Krasta, explains the challenges that the media is facing in the country, including the Public Television, in a semi-democratic atmosphere, as he describes it, where people are not ready to react, protest, or demand their rights. Under these conditions, according to Krasta, the most difficult thing for the media is to remain focused on what truly matters, what is valuable for people. And this is particularly challenging in a time when the world and audiences are rapidly changing due to digital developments.

The Albanian media have experienced a rapid and vibrant growth. Since 1991, the media landscape in Albania has undergone a continuous evolution across its various components. The media are polarised, just like politics. It is in almost the same hostile state as politics. What happens in the Albanian media is an extension of the warfare taking place in politics. Therefore, Albanian media can be described as free but not independent, as a pluralistic, but not independent where next to the continuous decline in press freedom rankings, there exists overt and noticeable governmental pressure exerted on the media.

What are the challenges that the media industry in Albania has faced over the past 30 years, and how have these challenges affected the public’s interest in relevant information?

When I started to work in radio, I was 23 years old. Albania was a communist country at the time. My boss was a very good, very well-informed, and sensitive writer. In our meetings, he used to say, “We have to think about people”. At the time, we didn’t understand the extent or the importance of this position towards ordinary people, who are the readers, listeners, or viewers. One time when I was younger, I went to interview a very well-known Albanian theatre and film director who had a clash with the regime. He was previously incarcerated and out of jail. When the situation changed, I had the chance to interview him. Back then I was a preponderance person, a little out of my head. I was very satisfied with my career at the time and was making mistakes that everybody makes. He said, “You don’t understand, you’re the public. The public now has the same urge to listen, to know, to feel, and to be informed.” After 30 years, we are exactly what he predicted. You’re going to talk to the audience and the audience is not going to be there to understand, to feel the same, to act, or to be a part of it. Why? Yes, because the world has changed. The world has changed in front of us. Some of us have realized it, some of us have not, and some of us are not understanding what is going on right now. Some people were visionaries and predicted what is currently happening. So, who fell first? The people. We didn’t have the desire and the passion to travel through the country, or to meet people in remote places. The viewers didn’t have the will to listen, or to understand what was going on in the country. We were bombarded with a new form of information: entertainment. There was more entertainment than relevant information. Gradually, we gave up the space for relevant information to this other kind of communication. We gave it to a superficial, colorless form of communication without a purpose between the media and people who are interested to know more. We had this idea during these last 30 years that people are not eager to learn and understand anymore. But maybe we have been the same all along. The world is changing very fast because of the internet. We used to think the internet was the culprit of this un-eagerness. But it’s not only the internet, it’s everybody. It’s the lack of or the problematic education system, it is the nature of politics, it is the demographic changes all over the world. For small countries like ours, it is almost a change in the borderlines of our existence. In the past 9 years, 600,000 people have left this country. It is emptying Tirana of the communist times. So, we weren’t prepared to understand this environment, the media environment. We weren’t interested in knowing what was happening in (cities in Albania) at the time. Now that we do know, we are not interested anymore, because we as people have changed. Programs like mine suffer for more viewership. Big brother has gone up so much. People were so interested to understand this famous experiment. I mean, I don’t blame them. We are now living in another era, but we are not prepared to change with everybody else.

And what about today’s war, about how this enlightenment “thing” remains valid in terms of the media industry, for example? How is it applied to modern society when it comes to challenges and changes?

There is a well-known Albanian writer named, Ismail Kadare, in one of his novels, he writes about a personage from western civilization coming to this not-very-developed country. There he finds a lady who looks as if she doesn’t weigh much and he says, “How light are you, how light”. Everything is light nowadays. The information is light, communication is becoming very light, and the media is working in a light mood. We are not interested to go as deep anymore. Our bosses aren’t seeking this passion that everybody used to have at one time during the existence of the media or journalism. Now Polite, with his very famous crusade. The uninterrupted effort to get to the truth that matters to everyone. He’s not the hero anymore, I mean the hero is now sensationalism, this firework of the moment. This issue is being chewed up during the day and then forgotten about tomorrow and this is the reality. The whys, hows and this drama that some of us have with the environment becoming slippery every day. We have been suffering. But it’s not enough to react in a positive way. 

Where do the citizens belong in this big question of media having the role of serving the public and especially public service media having an even higher role in doing this?? You mentioned a bit historically but in this case for example in the Albanian case, in public service media but as well as media and industry in general, have things changed or stayed the same? 

Of course, things have changed because everything eventually changes. BBC itself has very important unresolved issues at the moment. No institution in the world is saved from ongoing problems. Yes, we can see that the public media is almost blocked by an impasse, which is caused both internally and externally. For example, in this country, we have a semi-democracy. We have a democracy because people go to vote, but the voting system is crippled. It’s not honest and it’s not democratic. The superiors give you some rights to kind of behave in a way that reminds you of democracy, but in reality, it’s very much blocked into a political oligarchy, corporate interests, etc. General citizens from all over the world and this country as well have gone to other spaces like Facebook, Instagram, etc. Now let me tell you one example. The Albanian National Theatre, an excellent edifice created by the Italians a little bit prior to their invasion of Albania was the heart of the art, even though it was a communist regime in Tirana. But architecturally speaking, it was the heart of the town that reminded you of a beautiful, roman, Mussolinian time. Now, the Prime Minister wanted to tear it down. People reacted on the internet, such as on Facebook. But when the moment of physical clash came, nobody would show up, everybody was at home. Yes, this was also because the attack was very much organized at 4 in the morning, but on the day before the destruction, everybody was screaming on Facebook, but nobody was there to defend or help in person. Now yes, it is a kind of communication by the masses through social media, but I find it hypocritical, due to not really engaging, or ending with results. But from the other side, the media as it once existed is facing a real existential crisis, which is a crisis to understand reality. It’s a crisis to make it editorial, a crisis to positively distinguish what matters, and at the very end, to speak up about it. I mean, we are facing governmental/corporal pressure all over the world. Putin invaded Ukraine, many many journalists are kidnapped or killed. We haven’t heard about people from the espionage or people from the strata of the army, etc. Everybody talks about people who want to show others the reality through journalism, through real journalism. So, this war, whatever good journalism is, it’s not unreal, it’s real, it’s happening. We’re facing a very calculated attack on our core values. Nowadays people are not telling you how good of a journalist you are. All over the place, they are saying “We are happy that you are there to speak your mind”. Speaking our minds was not the very first rule of good journalism. It was normally implied that you have to speak your mind, it’s like breathing air. It’s speaking your mind and doing that with quality and in the service of the ordinary citizen. It’s presenting all the angles and securing and serving the fact, which is verified information taken in a very specific procedure. We are now playing in a big game which is being imposed on us, and not in a democratic way. This is a general crisis, no rules are applying anymore. People are afraid of journalists. The public has clear signs of apathy, negligence, and indifference. Nobody is trying to understand the public as a whole. In modern public relations, we used to say ‘the publics’. Different kinds of the public are there and the media is not idolizing them because the media is afraid that they will probably discover its importance. 

How can this change? What strategies can be employed by journalists and/policymakers in Albania to navigate the challenges posed by contemporary politics, changing media landscapes, and declining public interest in substantive news content? How can they foster a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of everyday life among their audiences?

I’m going to avoid giving solutions myself because I’m not really able to do that, but what do we do? We are trying to go to basics. I myself am not trying to change the world in a flamboyant and screaming way. I’m trying to do the small, everyday part. I choose my interviewees very carefully. If somebody were to ask me in an elegant way to get invited onto the program, then she’s not succeeding. I’m trying to be more thorough and more careful to distinguish the nuances of people who are not sincere in their message to the general public or “publics”. So, another thing is, I try to shake up my journalism students. They are not to sleep anymore but to shake up their very existence in understanding life, and not only in journalism. When it comes to understanding journalism, it comes back to them. It comes to understanding life, understanding pressure, understanding the lack of democracy, and understanding the new ‘Trumps’ of politics all over the world. Understanding Putin, understanding Zelensky, understanding Rama. It’s whatever the Albanian Prime Minister will bring with him in his politics at one time in one country. For some of us, it has become the cause. It’s ceased being a cause for some years, decades maybe. It’s really becoming a cause to not become extinct, journalistically speaking. It’s to have a voice, to have a public in front of you, whatever size. I’m not seeking numbers, I’m seeking understanding. I want them to understand the everyday issues that we face and it’s really, really difficult. Every time has their Wallaces, and whoever is contributing all over the world. We cannot ignore the importance and the problems of the moment. It’s a difficult time.