ORIENTATION IN THE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

In order for the cognitive process to go successfully, the journalist must have a solid installation on the perception of reality as a set of information sources, each of which can give him an “exclusive” - something that others are not yet aware of. The ability to obtain primary, "live" information is one of the main indicators of high professionalism of the journalist. The condition under which such a skill appears is free orientation in the existing information environment.

An understanding of the need to provide information support to the press was established in the society and a rather extensive network of informing journalists about current events took shape. The main elements of the network include:

Ø briefings - short meetings at which the media are familiarized with the position of the meeting organizers (most often they are representatives of the authorities) on a particular issue;

Ø presentations - solemn meetings of representatives of any state, public or private structures with the public, including representatives of the press, to get acquainted with the new enterprise, new products, new results of activity;

Ø press conferences - meetings of state and public figures, representatives of science, culture with journalists to inform them about current events or to answer their questions;

Ø press releases - special bulletins for the press about material facts prepared by the relevant press services;

Ø specialized newsletters on current events of a particular sphere of reality, published by corporate news agencies;

Ø emergency messages via fax or e-mail, received by the editorial staff from press secretaries, press services, press centers of various departments and public associations, sometimes directly from participants in events.

As a rule, announcements (messages about upcoming events) or informational products of a “common purpose”, created centrally, without taking into account the specifics of a particular media, are distributed through these channels. The same features are distinguished by messages from news agencies, special services that prepare journalistic materials intended for use in the media on a contractual basis (subscription).

Such assistance is very essential for the activities of editorial offices, but it does not eliminate the problem of timely receipt of information directly from life, and, consequently, problems of sources of information (especially since the preparation of agency materials is associated with them). The source of information for the journalist is a fragment of reality, contact with which replenishes the consciousness of the correspondent with new data about this reality. In essence, there are only three types of information sources: a document, a person, and a subject-real environment. What is each of them in general?

The concept of "document" is used in several meanings. According to one of them, the widest one, the document is a material recording medium (paper, film and film, punched card, magnetic recording, etc.) with information fixed on it for transmission in time and space. This is a repository of information products through which they are included in the communication process. A document in the narrow sense is an information product of a special kind, namely: an official paper created to confirm a fact or right to something. For journalism relevant both meanings of the word. You just need to keep in mind: in this case we are talking about information products, and they can be of different quality, because they bear the imprint of the identity of the person who created them, and the conditions in which this happened.

Another type of information source is a person. In the American scientific tradition, it is referred to as "living source." Perhaps this is the central link of the information environment. First of all, a person is often a witness or a participant in current events and therefore acts as a holder of information about them. Secondly, he is a carrier of information about himself, about his subjective world and appearance. Thirdly, he is a translator of information received from others. But this source has a peculiarity that significantly complicates its development: it can either “open up” to us or not “open up”. A person himself programs his informational behavior, and a journalist cannot ignore this.

Finally, another type of information sources is the subject-real environment , in other words, the environment that surrounds a person. Sometimes objects and things can tell about him no less than he himself. According to the situation, events, relationships of people, their characters are “read”, but under one condition: if the correspondent knows the language of things, if he is able to see and understand their “speech”.

When a creative act of a journalist begins on the basis of some specific data, there are no particular difficulties with finding sources of information: it is clear that they can be found in the area of ​​the event of interest to us. But how to find sources that could open a new topic? .. To this end, the aces of reporter work form a network of informants. The motives by which people enter into cooperation with the press are different. In some, this is a desire to become a journalist over time, in others it is a desire to earn some money on reporter work, in the third it is solidarity with editors leading the fight against corruption, injustice and arbitrariness. Representatives of the latter category of people, as a rule, do not seek either money or glory, they come into contact with the press for civilian reasons and sometimes take a lot of risk, and therefore need guarantees of nondisclosure. However, experience shows that access of journalists to information is far from unhindered. Sometimes this leads to the fact that it is necessary to look for workarounds, not being satisfied with the usual methods of cognition, which in normal conditions are able to give fairly reliable results.