"Reactions and shares of an excerpt from a video clip
after journalist Daiva Žeimytė-Bilienė asked Laurynas Kasčiūnas, a candidate
for the position of chairman of the Homeland Union - Lithuanian Christian
Democrats (TS-LKD), have spread on social networks. According to media expert
Linas Kontrimas, such questions are good for a democratic society and we should
pay attention not to the journalist, but to the interlocutor and how he reacts.
The question that caused various reactions was why L.
Kasčiūnas does not change his mobile phone number, which contains two eights
(these eights are considered a secret Nazi sign because the eighth letter of
the alphabet is H and is associated with the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler - Delfi's
post.).
"Why do some of your personal data still contain
symbols used by the Nazis?”, – the journalist asked the candidate.
L. Kasčiūnas asked to clarify the question: “What do you
mean?”. To this D. Žeimytė-Bilienė replied: “Your phone number.”
“My phone number is random,” – L. Kasčiūnas stated, but
journalist D. Žeimytė-Bilienė insisted: “I don’t think it’s random.”
L. Kasčiūnas, getting heated, commented that he had already
overheard a lot about himself.
“That I live in apartment 88, that my children were born on
Hitler’s birthday,” – he began to list, and the journalist asked again: “How can
these things be random?”
“Can I choose a phone number?” – L. Kasčiūnas also answered
with a question.
“You can! You can choose, and there’s such a coincidence of
two eights for some reason?”, – D. Žeimytė-Bilienė asked.
“I don’t know, it’s like that, so what now, change the
number?”, – the politician asked.
“Is it a coincidence?”, – the journalist asked.
“Yes, of course”, – he assured.
Žygimantas Pavilionis also spoke out in the video excerpt,
defending his fellow party member, saying that for him eight is associated with
the number of infinity, success, because he himself was getting married that
day, so he asked not to make such connections.
However, D. Žeimytė-Bilienė reminded that Ž. Pavilionis did
not previously belong to the Lithuanian National Democratic Party (Fascists), which L.
Kasčiūnas had previously joined.
Received threats
This excerpt spread on social media over the weekend. Some
social network users criticized the journalist’s question, many thought it was
out of the blue and that the phone number should not be associated with Nazi
attitudes. On the other hand, another part called L. Kasčiūnas a fascist.
Delfi tried to contact L. Kasčiūnas and D. Žeimytė-Bilienė
for a comment, but neither answered the phone.
A little later, D. Žeimytė-Bilienė shared a comment on
Facebook, in which she told what conclusions can be drawn in this situation.
“For the past few days, I have been observing a sharp
reaction to a question I asked one of the candidates for the position of
chairman of the Homeland Union-Christian Democratic Party. At first, the
candidate’s sympathizers, colleagues in the party, later haters of the
“systemic media” joined the chorus, and finally some fellow journalists.
Everyone is scratching their heads, wondering how such a question could have
been asked.
Because asking politicians about what cartoon characters they like
is OK, but asking why shadows of the past still appear in various forms in his
personal belongings is a terrible thing,” the journalist writes.
First of all, according to the journalist, the topic has not
been previously touched upon and discussed in Lithuania.
“The topic I touched on has absolutely not been discussed in
Lithuania, symbols, symbolism, which are written about a lot in the media of
other countries, were last discussed in more detail in our country in 2011,
when the Germans conducted a serious study on the use of symbols in modern
radical organizations,” the journalist writes.
“Journalists are taught from the first year that there are
no bad questions. The content is not the question, the content is the answer.
The conclusions are drawn by listeners and viewers. I strongly encourage
journalists, especially young colleagues, not to be afraid to ask. Otherwise,
there is no point in being a journalist,” the journalist also writes.
Earlier in a comment, the journalist shared that after the
spread of these video excerpts, she received threatening messages, so she
wished her colleagues who criticized her that they would not have to face this.
Also, according to D. Žeimytė-Bilienė, journalists should not be afraid to ask
even uncomfortable or sometimes strange-sounding questions.
She also added that L. Kasčiūnas immediately recognized what
symbols were being talked about, and since he could become the chairperson of
one of the largest parties, if everything is in the past, he should change his
number and there would be no more questions.
Kontrimas: it is worth coming up with the strangest question
for a journalist
According to media expert and Vilnius University (VU)
lecturer L. Kontrimas, anyone who has studied journalism at least a little, and
the public, should know that there is no such thing as a bad journalistic
question.
“You always need to observe and listen to how the
interlocutors react to the question, what answers they give with eyes and how they
behave. That's what's most important.
I'll say even more that sometimes it's even worth it for a
journalist to come up with the strangest, most tricky and perhaps, others would
say, the stupidest question. This is just to blow up the atmosphere of the
conversation and create very interesting answer options.
Such as would reveal various layers of the situation. That's
how you need to react to it," he insisted.
According to L. Kontrimas, perhaps many would like to ask L.
Kasčiūnas what his relationship is with his immature adolescence or youth.
"I think that's also normal. We grow, we change, so
that's just how I would look at this situation," he explained.
He also suggested that the journalistic community not engage
in criticism of D. Žeimytė-Bilienė. In his opinion, journalists can always have
such interlocutors, who, when talking to them, can slip their tongues both to
the left and to the right.
“A journalist is not a person who wants to expose himself in
any way. He asks uncomfortable questions because he wants to present the topic
to viewers, listeners, and readers in more detail.
In this case, it is also a bit hypocritical if journalists
rush to criticize. This should not be done, and I would suggest that we should
discuss why we avoid those topics so much about, for example, the political
right and those fashions.
Sometimes even about the same political extreme right. After
all, we are a free society and Lithuania, thank God, is a free state. There can
be people with different views here. Can't journalists ask people's opinions?
”, – L. Kontrimas asked rhetorically.
He reminded how terrible it would be if there were an
interview in which the answers were clear from the question itself or they were
generally agreed upon in advance.
“Do we need such content in principle? Then it would be better
to watch the reels non-stop and, so to speak, get blown away,” he summed up.
Political scientist Vytautas Valentinavičius also expressed
his opinion on Facebook. Sharing the Delfi text, he wrote: “Such questions are
necessary in a democratic society. Symbols have a deep meaning. Let’s see:
Lithuania even banned some symbols in the context of the Russian conflict. So,
those who claim that symbols mean nothing are not true. Symbols and their use
are a means of expression, what cannot be said in words, sometimes we express
with symbols,” he writes."
Lithuanian fascists are alive, fat (see the photo picture of Mr. Kasčiūnas) and happy. Jews should leave Lithuania now. It is too risky to be with us.
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