The right to tell the (right) story: journalism, authority and memory
Eyal Zandberg
Media Culture Society 2010 32: 5
DOI: 10.1177/0163443709350095
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Abstract
This study focuses on the nature of cultural authority. It contextualizes its exploration in the field of journalism and explores the cultural battle over the right to shape society’s stories of the past. In doing so, it seeks to illuminate a perspective insufficiently studied in collective memory research and communication studies. To date, most studies have analysed collective memory as it has appeared in texts (museums, books, films, etc.) and few studies have explored collective memory by studying audience perceptions (Schuman et al., 2003). This article applies a complementary perspective: it focuses on the preconditions for authorship that provide writers with the mandate to shape society’s collective memory through daily newspapers.
The research follows earlier studies of the role of journalists as agents of memory and issues of journalistic authority (Edy, 2006; Kitch, 2005; Meyers, 2002), and, following the narrative approach, it explores the writers who shape narratives. Hence, this study focuses less on the texts and more on the people behind the texts. The research elaborates the complex nature of journalistic authority. It explores the preconditions for authorship and analyses the ways in which those preconditions constitute and shape it. Carried out by analysis of Israeli daily newspapers published on Holocaust Memorial Day throughout the first 50 years of the state of Israel, the study traces the biographies and writings of those authors whose articles were published in the special Holocaust Day issues, and asks – to whom does society entrust the authority to tell its most important stories? Thus, the study seeks to develop further the connection between collective memory and journalistic authority: first, by exploring the preconditions for authorship and the interrelations between the different sources of authority; and, second, by exposing the role of those preconditions in the process of shaping the different commemorative narratives of society.
The article unfolds in the following manner:
first, the presentation of the theoretical framework elaborates the relations between collective memory, journalism, and Holocaust representation.
Second, the different sources of authority that provide writers with the mandate to shape Holocaust memory in Israeli daily newspapers are elaborated, with close attention directed to the complexity of relations between the sources. The deconstruction of journalistic authority in relation to its sources and the analysis of the dynamics of the preconditions for authorship illuminate the perspective proposed here, that perceives the granting of journalistic authority to be a dynamic and complex process.
Finally, trauma theory is applied to interpret the research’s findings. Doing so, the study reveals the subterranean forces that shape society’s collective memory and shows how different sources of authority shape different narratives.
Eyal Zandberg
Media Culture Society 2010 32: 5
DOI: 10.1177/0163443709350095
Abstract
This study focuses on the nature of cultural authority. It contextualizes its exploration in the field of journalism and explores the cultural battle over the right to shape society’s stories of the past. In doing so, it seeks to illuminate a perspective insufficiently studied in collective memory research and communication studies. To date, most studies have analysed collective memory as it has appeared in texts (museums, books, films, etc.) and few studies have explored collective memory by studying audience perceptions (Schuman et al., 2003). This article applies a complementary perspective: it focuses on the preconditions for authorship that provide writers with the mandate to shape society’s collective memory through daily newspapers.
The research follows earlier studies of the role of journalists as agents of memory and issues of journalistic authority (Edy, 2006; Kitch, 2005; Meyers, 2002), and, following the narrative approach, it explores the writers who shape narratives. Hence, this study focuses less on the texts and more on the people behind the texts. The research elaborates the complex nature of journalistic authority. It explores the preconditions for authorship and analyses the ways in which those preconditions constitute and shape it. Carried out by analysis of Israeli daily newspapers published on Holocaust Memorial Day throughout the first 50 years of the state of Israel, the study traces the biographies and writings of those authors whose articles were published in the special Holocaust Day issues, and asks – to whom does society entrust the authority to tell its most important stories? Thus, the study seeks to develop further the connection between collective memory and journalistic authority: first, by exploring the preconditions for authorship and the interrelations between the different sources of authority; and, second, by exposing the role of those preconditions in the process of shaping the different commemorative narratives of society.
The article unfolds in the following manner:
first, the presentation of the theoretical framework elaborates the relations between collective memory, journalism, and Holocaust representation.
Second, the different sources of authority that provide writers with the mandate to shape Holocaust memory in Israeli daily newspapers are elaborated, with close attention directed to the complexity of relations between the sources. The deconstruction of journalistic authority in relation to its sources and the analysis of the dynamics of the preconditions for authorship illuminate the perspective proposed here, that perceives the granting of journalistic authority to be a dynamic and complex process.
Finally, trauma theory is applied to interpret the research’s findings. Doing so, the study reveals the subterranean forces that shape society’s collective memory and shows how different sources of authority shape different narratives.
The article concludes by examining an alternative, more constructive, journalistic commemoration narrative, as a potential turning point in commemorative discourse. Hence, it suggests that professional-journalistic sources of authority can help society in the process of working through the trauma.
Conclusions: professional-journalistic authority – towards alternative commemorative discourse?
This article discussed the complexity of the concept of journalistic authority in relation to the shaping of collective memory. Five main sources of authority were identified and the thesis offered that only the combination of several sources is sufficient to bestow the status of storyteller on the writer.
One of the most evident findings in this research is the marginal role played by one distinct group of writers-journalists. Only on rare occasions was there evidence of a journalist who wrote about the Holocaust solely by virtue of his/her professional authority. Journalists always needed an additional source of authority: political newspapers looked for writers who were part of the official establishment, while commercial newspapers found journalists who were also Holocaust survivors. The research traced the changing interrelations between journalism and other social fields, and found that the press tended to cede authority to external factors: politicians, intellectuals, poets, figures from popular culture and others. This illustrates the relatively weak autonomy of the journalistic field. From the perspective of field theory (Benson and Neveu, 2005), given the ever-changing circumstances over time, journalism was always closer to the heteronymous pole and external factors determined its position.
Trauma theory provides a very insightful approach for the integration and interpretation of these findings. As a research tool, trauma theory reveals how different authoritative voices confront trauma in different ways by representing and constructing different discourses. Dominic LaCapra (1994) advanced a conceptualization that claims that groups and individuals ‘act out’ and/or ‘work through’ trauma outside of the therapeutic framework in order to relate it to the cultural domain, mediated by society’s memory agents. Accordingly, trauma is acted out when it is repeated, compulsively rehearsed, and the differences between the past, present and future go unrecognized. Historical traumas may provoke a generation-long acting out in the form of denial and violence (Frank, 2007: 312). Working through also involves a mode of repetition, but one that offers a measured critical perspective on problems, seeks to control action in a responsible manner and advances desirable change. This implies the possibility of judgment that is argumentative, self-questioning and related in mediated ways to action (LaCapra, 1994: 209–10).
LaCapra’s conceptualization offers insights into the findings of this study: for example, the research findings indicate that the dominance of biographical and political-related factors led Israeli commemorative discourse to a sancti-fication of the Holocaust. This process created preconditions for authorship only for the ‘right’ people who could tell the ‘right’ stories, and thus, to the construction of a discourse dominated by a ‘redemptive narrative’ (LaCapra, 2001). The dominance of this redemptive narrative has great significance. From the cultural-theoretical perspective, there is a fear that the redemptive closure will erase the ‘excess’ of unbearable events, an erasure that creates a tendency towards ‘closure without resolution’ (Friedlander, 1992b: 54). From a political perspective, the redemptive narrative of the Holocaust indicates that Israeli society has yet to begin working through the trauma of the Holocaust. Some even see the redemptive narrative as a force preventing Israel from becoming more civil egalitarian society (Zertal, 2005).
The article suggests an alternative commemorative discourse, one that tends towards working through the trauma, one that can be found in the newspaper Ha’aretz. One of the main explanations for its alternative position is its emphasis on the professional journalistic authority at the expense of biographic and official authorities, together with the more universalistic-humanistic ideology of the newspaper. Reliance on journalists and their professional practices has positioned Ha’aretz in opposition to the other newspapers, as it presents a much more critical and self-reflexive commemorative discourse (Zandberg, 2008). Ha’aretz has not engaged the same writers to comment on the Holocaust commemorations, rather it has distributed the authority to address this subject to its different staff writers. Furthermore, it has also published translated articles from foreign newspapers on a regular basis, relying only on their professional-journalistic authority and not on the national to biographic one.
This action was taken in parallel with the adoption of an alternative commemorative narrative. Ha’aretz is the only Israeli newspaper that consistently called for and applied a more critical, self-reflexive Holocaust discourse. This view stands in stark contrast to views evoked by the rest of the Israeli press: moral rebuke of the world for its impotence during the Holocaust and calls to ‘learn’ the lessons of the Holocaust. Ha’aretz has turned against this nationalistic framing and has called upon Israeli society to implement such learning by changing its policy regarding its Arab citizens and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (Editorial of 20 April 1982). Similarly, the newspaper devoted a major portion of the 23 April 1998 commemorative edition to discussing the role of the Holocaust in Israeli-Arab society and ways to use commemoration as a bridge between the nations.
In addition, unlike other newspapers, at Ha’aretz different staff journalists have been involved in reporting on Holocaust commemoration. Ha’aretz’s strategy ‘deconstructs’ Holocaust discourse according to its journalistic divisions and does not change its professional routine. Hence, the reporter who covers the education system writes about commemorative rituals in schools; the reporter responsible for covering the ultra-orthodox religious sector reports about religious commemoration of the Holocaust; and so forth. Thus, Ha’aretz is the only newspaper in which the authors’ professionalism is the main component of their authority as storyteller. Hence, the newspaper contains Holocaust commemoration within its journalistic norms.
This article suggests seeing the alternative commemorative discourse presented by Ha’aretz as a challenge to the dominant Israeli form of commemoration. Paraphrasing White (1974), the alternative commemorative discourse exposes ‘the commemorative text as a journalistic artifact’. It also ‘normalizes’ Holocaust remembrance instead of sanctifying it, allowing for a more critical and self-reflexive discourse. Relying on journalistic-professional authority, Ha’aretz creates a narrative that enables a process of working through the trauma instead of reproducing the nationalistic commemoration.
Furthermore, major changes in commemorative cultural authority may enable journalists to play a more significant role. Due to natural processes, the number of witnesses is declining and in a few years, there will not be many survivors left to talk about their direct experiences. This survivors’ authority, too, has weakened with expansion to the second and third generations. It will be interesting to note, in years to come, whether Israeli journalists will fill this vacuum, and if so, whether this process will have an impact on society’s collective memory.
Finally, further exploration of the journalistic authority that provides writers with the mandate to shape a society’s collective memory could be advanced via a comparative perspective that explores how different cultures commemorate different traumatic events.
Conclusions: professional-journalistic authority – towards alternative commemorative discourse?
This article discussed the complexity of the concept of journalistic authority in relation to the shaping of collective memory. Five main sources of authority were identified and the thesis offered that only the combination of several sources is sufficient to bestow the status of storyteller on the writer.
One of the most evident findings in this research is the marginal role played by one distinct group of writers-journalists. Only on rare occasions was there evidence of a journalist who wrote about the Holocaust solely by virtue of his/her professional authority. Journalists always needed an additional source of authority: political newspapers looked for writers who were part of the official establishment, while commercial newspapers found journalists who were also Holocaust survivors. The research traced the changing interrelations between journalism and other social fields, and found that the press tended to cede authority to external factors: politicians, intellectuals, poets, figures from popular culture and others. This illustrates the relatively weak autonomy of the journalistic field. From the perspective of field theory (Benson and Neveu, 2005), given the ever-changing circumstances over time, journalism was always closer to the heteronymous pole and external factors determined its position.
Trauma theory provides a very insightful approach for the integration and interpretation of these findings. As a research tool, trauma theory reveals how different authoritative voices confront trauma in different ways by representing and constructing different discourses. Dominic LaCapra (1994) advanced a conceptualization that claims that groups and individuals ‘act out’ and/or ‘work through’ trauma outside of the therapeutic framework in order to relate it to the cultural domain, mediated by society’s memory agents. Accordingly, trauma is acted out when it is repeated, compulsively rehearsed, and the differences between the past, present and future go unrecognized. Historical traumas may provoke a generation-long acting out in the form of denial and violence (Frank, 2007: 312). Working through also involves a mode of repetition, but one that offers a measured critical perspective on problems, seeks to control action in a responsible manner and advances desirable change. This implies the possibility of judgment that is argumentative, self-questioning and related in mediated ways to action (LaCapra, 1994: 209–10).
LaCapra’s conceptualization offers insights into the findings of this study: for example, the research findings indicate that the dominance of biographical and political-related factors led Israeli commemorative discourse to a sancti-fication of the Holocaust. This process created preconditions for authorship only for the ‘right’ people who could tell the ‘right’ stories, and thus, to the construction of a discourse dominated by a ‘redemptive narrative’ (LaCapra, 2001). The dominance of this redemptive narrative has great significance. From the cultural-theoretical perspective, there is a fear that the redemptive closure will erase the ‘excess’ of unbearable events, an erasure that creates a tendency towards ‘closure without resolution’ (Friedlander, 1992b: 54). From a political perspective, the redemptive narrative of the Holocaust indicates that Israeli society has yet to begin working through the trauma of the Holocaust. Some even see the redemptive narrative as a force preventing Israel from becoming more civil egalitarian society (Zertal, 2005).
The article suggests an alternative commemorative discourse, one that tends towards working through the trauma, one that can be found in the newspaper Ha’aretz. One of the main explanations for its alternative position is its emphasis on the professional journalistic authority at the expense of biographic and official authorities, together with the more universalistic-humanistic ideology of the newspaper. Reliance on journalists and their professional practices has positioned Ha’aretz in opposition to the other newspapers, as it presents a much more critical and self-reflexive commemorative discourse (Zandberg, 2008). Ha’aretz has not engaged the same writers to comment on the Holocaust commemorations, rather it has distributed the authority to address this subject to its different staff writers. Furthermore, it has also published translated articles from foreign newspapers on a regular basis, relying only on their professional-journalistic authority and not on the national to biographic one.
This action was taken in parallel with the adoption of an alternative commemorative narrative. Ha’aretz is the only Israeli newspaper that consistently called for and applied a more critical, self-reflexive Holocaust discourse. This view stands in stark contrast to views evoked by the rest of the Israeli press: moral rebuke of the world for its impotence during the Holocaust and calls to ‘learn’ the lessons of the Holocaust. Ha’aretz has turned against this nationalistic framing and has called upon Israeli society to implement such learning by changing its policy regarding its Arab citizens and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (Editorial of 20 April 1982). Similarly, the newspaper devoted a major portion of the 23 April 1998 commemorative edition to discussing the role of the Holocaust in Israeli-Arab society and ways to use commemoration as a bridge between the nations.
In addition, unlike other newspapers, at Ha’aretz different staff journalists have been involved in reporting on Holocaust commemoration. Ha’aretz’s strategy ‘deconstructs’ Holocaust discourse according to its journalistic divisions and does not change its professional routine. Hence, the reporter who covers the education system writes about commemorative rituals in schools; the reporter responsible for covering the ultra-orthodox religious sector reports about religious commemoration of the Holocaust; and so forth. Thus, Ha’aretz is the only newspaper in which the authors’ professionalism is the main component of their authority as storyteller. Hence, the newspaper contains Holocaust commemoration within its journalistic norms.
This article suggests seeing the alternative commemorative discourse presented by Ha’aretz as a challenge to the dominant Israeli form of commemoration. Paraphrasing White (1974), the alternative commemorative discourse exposes ‘the commemorative text as a journalistic artifact’. It also ‘normalizes’ Holocaust remembrance instead of sanctifying it, allowing for a more critical and self-reflexive discourse. Relying on journalistic-professional authority, Ha’aretz creates a narrative that enables a process of working through the trauma instead of reproducing the nationalistic commemoration.
Furthermore, major changes in commemorative cultural authority may enable journalists to play a more significant role. Due to natural processes, the number of witnesses is declining and in a few years, there will not be many survivors left to talk about their direct experiences. This survivors’ authority, too, has weakened with expansion to the second and third generations. It will be interesting to note, in years to come, whether Israeli journalists will fill this vacuum, and if so, whether this process will have an impact on society’s collective memory.
Finally, further exploration of the journalistic authority that provides writers with the mandate to shape a society’s collective memory could be advanced via a comparative perspective that explores how different cultures commemorate different traumatic events.
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