Autoritratto di un Reporter by Ryszard Kapuscinski

 I have finished to read two books by Ryszard Kapuscinski these days. This one I have close to me is Autoritratto di un Reporter

. I hadn't previously read any books by him. I remember him as one of the biggest reporters of our times and when months ago he was mentioned in a book I was reading, I asked to a dear contact I have in Poland, in love for books something of his works. "Oh, she said me immediately: go for them. He is simply splendid." 

And it is true. 

What maybe is more remarkable and shocking, in positive sense, in Kapuscinski is compassion, humanity, an amicable approach with the existence and the other ones he met along his way. A tender touch that it is uncommon in many journalists.

He was born poor, starved, he suffered a lot during his childhood, so that life and a good, positive, gentle character, helped him a lot during his existence.

Living in Poland during the Soviet era, and having started a career as journalist, Ryszard tells in In Viaggio con Erodoto that to him it would have been exotic to visit just Czekoslovakia. 

That borders attracted him so badly, because he didn't know what he would have met there. Under many ways it was our same approach when we visited Prague and there was still the Communism. 

We knew that it would have been a different atmosphere, and that we entered in a different condition of life, and feelings.

In this book to me absolutely modern, there are many reflections on journalism, the profession of reporter and the state of the medias.

Kapuscinski thinks that the work of a reporter is peaceless: it is necessary a lot of cultural preparation, and concentration. That kind of areas where a reporter goes maybe will be visited just once in a lifetime and it is important to try to understand  people, a culture in a few hours. Sure, if a person returns, at a certain distance of years in the same country and places, he will find the same places completely different, but this one is life, writes the beloved reporter: world is so alive and changes continuously.

It is fascinating to Kapuscinski to trying to see the precise moment in which the human development enters in a new phase, describing, defining it. The importance of an event, and reporting this event is crucial for the understanding of THAT moment, historically as well.

Kapuscinski insists that it is not for money that he is a reporter. It's a mission and like every mission this work is important for the other people, for the collectivity, for readers, viewers: a reporter tells to his viewers, readers the reality touched with his hands and for being a good journalists, is important to be good people affirms with decision. Bad people won't never be good journalists, because it is crucial the understanding of the other, what he wants to communicate, being part of his destiny.

It will be important, writes Ryszard to build relationships between various cultures, based not on subordination but collaboration, and crucial is to speak of the gap that there is in the world: the industrialized one, and the other one, the Third World, where people are starved, and young men of 30 years demonstrate 70 years, because of the critical conditions in which they live. 

At that time it was still real the impossibility to understand the complexity of the world and how, distant countries, other parts of the Planet, affected, influenced our own world. Each of us is strongly connected with the rest of the world, in every direction, says Kapuscinski.

Travelling has been a mission to him for the understanding of the complexity of the world and the surprise of seeing  places so different from his own one.

Kapuscinski didn't mind of putting in order names and last names of ministers and people, or exact dates, or the events as they happened chronologically: he writes that for this exigency there are public libraries.

It's not simple to be a war reporter, no: it's indispensibile to have a good body, a great health, and a good psichic system. It's not just a story of curiosity but of various components that permits to the reporter of working well and at long,

Not everyone can resists at long. Reporters are not cinics. They couldn't be because there is behind too much sacrifice.   

Reporting a war implies a certain partigianery although it would be better not to be blind or fanatics.

Reporters won't never report in the same way a fact, because of their past, their experiences. Our way to see the world is influenced by our past, experiences, schools, culture.

It's not necessary to bring a lot of things with us during a trip remarks Ryszard. A notebook, a pen, some clothes: a light luggage. Kapuscinski remembers with irony when at the Polish customs arrived his luggage after a trip: a box of books and just other two items. More light is the luggage more distant we can go, I think also metaphorically, thinking better.

Books are a remarkable part of the existence of Kapuscinski, and I understand him very well. He didn't have any book at home when little, because his family was too poor, but he bought them during his existence in every corner of the world where he went for work.

Kapuscinski thinks that it is indispensible to spend a lot of time with locals of foreign countries. He prefers to interview locals, for trying to understand their point of view. And every story remains in his soul. 

Ryszard tells the anecdocts of a young russian boy. He sent a tale to Gorki. Gorki replied him that he had appreciated his work, and that he thought he had talent. Just, he added: now stop to write, and live. Visit every possible corner of Russia, without writing anything and then re-start to do that. You'll see, the mind is selective, you will remember everything and the things you have forgotten, oh well, you'll understand that they weren't so important.

Not just a great reporter, but also great photographer, Ryszard felt the necessity of taking pictures paying attention at what people were saying through their expressions.

Nationalisms is increasing reports Kapuscinski and it is a big danger also linguistically because in that countries people will want to use just their tongue for expressing themselves. A big limit. 

It is important for a good journalist to report the entire story of an event. "We are more informed than common people, so we musn't lose the occasion to inform people on the state of things."

The real reporter spends time with locals, sleeping, eating, with them, not at the hotel Hilton, where reality is falsified.

Biggest hotels are plenty of rich people, insists Kapuscinskin but it is in the littlest hotels that you meet the real life. It's like when you catch a train in first class, spending a lot of boring time (I experienced it: people are so snob!) and in the second one, where you will live an electrified time because you will meet people of the most different genre.

Responsibility, seriety, importance: this ones are indispensible characteristics for a good journalist. They are conquered, adds Kapuscinski with the destiny and the behavior of a reporter.

A reporter must be emphatic and humble and spending time with people.

In the Third World, the arrival of a person in a little village is like the arrival of a god. Yes, because explains Kapuscinski, it is impossible to understand if the new person is a God, someone sent by the divinities or a man, so there is a lot of respect.

Having a lot of culture in that countries won't help without the locals: they have a different education but it is that one in grade of saving the existence, making the difference.

Kapuscinski doesn't love writing long books, and choose carefully what to say, rereading, adjusting phrases, words, and no adjectives.

An avid reader, Kapuscinski had a library divided in three sectors: plus he left books in several part of the world. When he started a new job, it meant to him reading as many books as possible on the thematic, and place he would have treated. 

It's important when travelling being anonymous because people speaks with more freedom if not under the pressure of having close to them a reporter.

The fifth chapter of this book is absolutely interesting. Kapuscinski speaks of the power of the new medias, not anymore here to inform but to create the reality, a sort of fairyland or a land of horror, it depends, but, the role of the TV is not so intense, it is not so absolute: it is superficial and can't present to people the real complexity of reality.

The alteration of the reality is also caused by what a TV wants to communicate to people. In general, says Ryszard it wants to present to viewers a big dramatization when, in most cases this message is completely wrong.

Plurality of medias means plurality of commitments. Work changes as well, passing from a hand to another one. And when work becomes anonymous, when there is not anymore the problem of responsibility, the possibility of nazionalisms, racisms, and fundamentalisms is big. Man can't understand the fall of all borders, writes Kapuscinki. 

The medias for masses will become an industry of entertainment, thanks also to the end of the Cold War.

If, CNN ABC, CBS are considered arrogant and indifferent by Ryszard, there are good magazines like Harper's, Foreign Affairs in grade to make the difference, but there are not too many realities like these ones.

Kapuscinski then treats also another topic that it is crucial in information: the massive news we receive from every corner of the world: the sense of the time is gone, because we receive them all during the evening or the morning and plus the viewer has another problem: how to order these informations locating them somewhere in his mind for an elaboration.

News is treated like a merchandise, not like a vector of truth and the western world try to defend itself putting in bad shape all the rest of the world seeing it as a menace: so, what we know of the rest of the world at the moment is what that important American TV stations are telling us, adds Kapuscinski. But...Isn't it reductive? There is no more censorship maybe, explains, but there is manipulation. Media development writes Kapunscki has meant with the time another ethical problem: the one of the truth and lie. Kapuscinski speaks of the lies of the past: writing a letter, you told a lie to a person: then a man, Hitler told lies to 40 million people and Stalin  to 200 million. But now, when a lie is reported in the entire world many more people are deceived.

What was the first Persian Gulf War if not the spectacularization online of the consumistic philosophy? War became aesthetic, so that it didn't ruin, writes sadly Kapuscinski, our lunches and dinners. 

Journalism at the same time is changing. Once journalism meant responsibility, qualification, culture, maturity, and who became someone was known everywhere  Now, ethically, journalism changed a lot. It is possible to see a journalist asking to a widow of someone passed away just 2 hours before because of a terrible incident: "How are you feeling?"

The camera becomes a vulture spying possible tears, desperation of the person . And, adds Kapucisnki, there is nothing that can be done because there is competition and competition is a mechanism of market that it is the base of democracy. So, if a journalist refuses to do that he will be immediately replaced by another one.

In Polland as well journalism was elitarian, becoming a phaenomen of mass, sometimes without the proper preparation and first of all ethicity.

The journalist became not a life-style but a reason for making money.

The problem of our journalism is that because of the camera past doesn't exist anymore, everything starts today. There is not anymore an emotive relationship with the past, and this fact is terrible says the beloved writer.

There were just few people for example, says Kapucisnki that were in grade to explain historically why in NYC that 11 september, happened what happened. The first islamic sect was born in 1060, but to the media this terrorist attack was lived like a revelation.

Weakness of schools of journalism is that they prepare well the technical aspects of the job ignoring the ethical preparation, but a journalist must have an ethical preparation in particular if he must takes quick decisions and he is on air: a  solid ethical preparation is indispensible.

Being changed the people that there are in the industry of journalism, in the past people who fought for the truth, now  businessmen, the biggest worry is not anymore to give to the viewers, or readers a good, important and solid product, of value, but an attracting one.

Once, when a journalist started the profession was followed by someone more old than him for advices: at the moment who could follow a new journalist when big televisions are in the hands of businessmen that probably don't read nwsmagazines or watch TV? The example of Kapuscinski the one of Ted Turner that was the founder of the CNN.

These people, adds Kapuscinski want to make money: they are not interested at living the existence of the common people.

They are not journalists, they are capable to make money.

Kapuscinski says that he refused to follow the first Persian Gulf War because it was only a story of American propaganda and nothing involved real journalism.

There are big journalists: Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez people who intended to report intentionally news.

It was a long time that I hadn't read such a vivid and clear account of the state of this profession and in particular with such   compassionate, calm, vibrant words. These words, also if this book has been translated and published here in 2006 are extremely modern. 

Anna Maria Polidori