Standards of Journalism and “Language of Tolerance”in the Context of Legislation and State and National Security

Abstract

The article analyses the persistent proposals from a number of journalists and media experts since 2014 to adhere to the “language of tolerance” and avoid “stylistically coloured vocabulary” for naming members of illegal armed groups, ideologues and leaders of quasi-state formations in ORDLO (SDDLR — separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions; temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine) in journalistic works. According to these recommendations, the words “terrorist”, “separatist”, “bandit” were considered undesirable, especially in information genres, besides, they allegedly violated the standards of journalism, which require exclusively objective, neutral coverage of the conflict in the Donbas and the Russian-Ukrainian War. In 2022, the word “orcs” was brought to “undesirable” category in Ukrainian journalism, although the words “rashism” and “rashists” were deemed acceptable. The distinction was exceptionally subjective. The main criterion for determining desirable/undesirable words was the personal interpretation of the stylistic colouring of words, which supposedly should be completely avoided. The author of the article suggests that the selection of relevant lexemes should be guided primarily by the requirements of Ukrainian and foreign legislation and state-national security, which should be dominant and indisputable for journalists. In accordance with these requirements, the lexemes “terrorists”, “separatists”, “bandits” for the soldiers and officials of the temporarily occupied territories are acceptable and even mandatory for use. In addition, considering the works of foreign and Ukrainian researchers, in particular those who defended the “language of tolerance”, the author of the article proves that emotionality, empathy, subjectivity are acceptable and even immanent features of those groups of genres that Ukrainian scientists call analytical and journalistic. Likewise, these traits are immanent for information genres such as reportage and interviews. Therefore, emotionality and subjectivity in defending national-patriotic values and territorial integrity of the state are quite acceptable. Certain ocasional concepts and terms that originally had a metaphorical, stylistically colored character and passed into the status of well-known and generally accepted vivid outlines of events, phenomena, persons and groups of persons are also acceptable for use in notes, reports, messages and other information genres.