Some editors have no idea about anything, so everything is “horror” and “horror” to them. Let’s say, I read somewhere that a “horror traffic accident” took place, and in the news you see that there were no injuries and that there was minor material damage, veteran chronicler Miloš Ž tells “Vreme”.
Miloš Z. Lazić had just started his journalistic career when, in December 1993, Ilija Vujić Bumbar broke into an apartment in Pohorska Street to rob the money that was allegedly there. He killed a woman, her 13-year-old son and a dog.
Lazić liked to report on it and did a great job – so he moved from the Belgrade column to the black chronicle. He says that in the time without the Internet, work was “easier and slower.” After that, he was a little bit everywhere, for the longest time in Glas javnosti, then in Kurir and Srpski telegraf, and now he is on the portal nova.rs.
Lazić talks to our newsletter editorial office about why people love the black chronicle, how much it is chasing clicks today and where tabloid journalism ends and serious journalism begins.
WEATHER: When did the black chronicle come to light in our media?
Miloš Ž. Lazić: It is a phenomenon that very quickly conquered the market in the nineties. The old state and value system fell apart and some guys appeared, interesting to citizens and the media. I’ve never liked expressions like “hot asphalt samurai” because they’re just killers and cutthroats, but writing about them sold newspapers.
This is how the audience and the media fed each other topics in a time of misery, hopelessness, horror – people with good cars, whom no one could do anything, were written and read about. Especially for the younger audience, they became role models, which was completely wrong. At one point, the police stopped functioning and fighting against it, and the criminals, just doing their job, were already connected to the ruling structures.
But it’s not just crime. The news has become scary but everyday things, like a car accident or someone being electrocuted…
I think it’s a nasty thing, especially the custom of a journalist going to a family. Imagine, someone young dies in a car accident and they send a reporter to ask the parents how they feel. So how can someone who loses a child feel? With the Internet, everything has accelerated and is even worse.
It is a figment of lazy editors. The market dictates the working conditions – instead of the media looking to shape the audience, the reverse is happening. We used to be asked to paint corpses, wounds, horrors… we called it “six caries” because so much detail was required.
Something like that breaks not only the rules of the profession, but also the moral rules… they paint a picture of a burning man in a car or a charred corpse. All these people have families, friends… It’s about provoking the lowest emotions.
Have you ever turned down an assignment?
I did, in a tabloid I worked for, exactly what I was talking about. It was supposed to go to some family, and the accident happened an hour or two ago. I said it was too early, that people were in shock. And so I came into conflict with the then editor.
What was his argument?
That’s the easiest thing for them to do – it will be read, watched. They don’t think about the family, me or the other colleagues they send. Nor how readers will view it. But everyone will click.
Why do people like to watch it?
Eros and Thanatos are always the most read sections – pop, chronicle and sport. And the rich cry, maybe that’s it. He crashed in an expensive car, and he was also touched by an accident.
There is a theory that people like dark chronicles as well as dark humor – because it reminds them that they are, after all, still alive…
It is. And then they say “yeah, upside down, look what’s happening…”
We’re all in the damn daily “trends” and crowd chasing. In the era of social networks and algorithms, to what extent does it affect newsrooms pushing black chronicles?
Everything is accelerated. The problem is that mistakes happen in the race. For example, the identity of the victim is mistaken. Often the first information from the scene is wrong, because it is based on the statements of witnesses who heard something or made it up – who, strictly speaking, are not eyewitnesses. Younger colleagues run into each other. We older people can recognize it a little easier.
Then the famous thing happens – the portals immediately take out the first news that is completely wrong. Then they get the real data and make a new news in which they write that there has been a “reversal”…
The vocabulary of the black chronicle is also specific… There is always something “horror”, “horror”, “the blood freezes in the veins”, a “wail” is heard. Can phrases be avoided?
Now some editors – I’m lucky to work with a good team – have no idea about anything, so everything is “horror” and “horror” to them. For example, I read somewhere that a “horror traffic accident” happened, and in the news you see that there were no injuries and that the material damage was minor. And everything was done on the basis of one picture from social networks where you can see a crashed car. They think the headline will sell them the news.
Unfortunately, they probably will.
They will, and that’s the problem. Our audience is also ignorant, they want blood and games. But when you repeat “horror” and “horror” ten times, then the threshold of tolerance increases. And what if the horror actually happens?
Recently, the code of journalists was changed so that it is forbidden to report on funerals, except when it comes to public figures. Cemetery reportage is a special form, isn’t it?
It is. And it is good that it is applied less. Even with public figures, I think you should ask the family. Once upon a time it was terrible – “sadness to the sky”, and “heaven wept” with a mother who lost a child. Frazetine. Devaluation of human feelings. Describing wailing, photographing a crate being lowered… and it’s someone’s child.
Have you guessed by now which category of black chronicles people read the most?
Even after three decades I can’t say exactly, sometimes I’m surprised. Sometimes a well-studied text about organized crime passes, and sometimes something completely different – say “This is a young mother who died in a traffic accident”. And that happens everywhere, so what did that woman deserve to be published in the media? That’s a handful of clicks more.
Do you remember some texts where it was difficult for you to write?
Of course, it’s a common occurrence. Let’s say, “Pondkeeper”. Because I’m trying to rationalize. If a criminal died, what he lived on died. Or, if someone is a victim of robbery, they were unlucky… there must be a motive.
And with “Ribnikar” it is not clear, the child killed the children and a guard. I couldn’t rationalize. I was reluctant to deal with the subject at all and to this day I don’t like to touch it. Crimes and accidents are dislocations, but something like this is very difficult because there is no logic and reason.
In the end, death is a safe business. Maybe it’s the same for Black Chronicle journalists?
Yes, but there are different ones. The easiest way to use these phrases is to write about children buried in a white box. But there are other sides – serious work in the black chronicle. Organized crime, corruption, police work, prosecutions, trials… when working analytically, investigatively. The Black Chronicle goes from the muddy basement to the penthouse of serious journalism.
Source: Vreme
