Ryszard Kapuściński is a reporter by vocation — this thought comes to mind very powerfully during a reading of A Portrait of the Reporter. One can also say that he is a journalist by vocation, a writer by vocation. A genuine authority for many young people beginning to write. Today, when what counts is the pursuit of money and the pursuit of sensation, the image of the Reporter presented in this publication has an extraordinary value.

In a world where information is only a commodity, where journalism is supposed to generate as much money as possible, where a few great networks have a monopoly on introducing new information into the media, Ryszard Kapuściński appears as a journalist who is par excellence independent: thinking differently, upright, respectful of the people he meets, respectful of the reader. And precisely this encounter with the extraordinary personality that emerges from the pages of this book is perhaps the most precious thing the reader gains.

For it must be noted that the idea itself and the composition of the Portrait are not the best. First, one must agree with Marika Bannach, who in her review for the Tolle.pl portal wrote: “How can one describe a single person’s life in 145 pages? And still such an extraordinary person as Ryszard Kapuściński was?” It seems that the designation “portrait” is too bold here. The second thing is the at-times absolutely artificial joining of certain entirely different statements by Kapuściński. Aesthetically ungainly too are fragments where the questions posed to Kapuściński by various interviewers are woven in. Between them and the preceding and following statement of the Reporter there is no white space at all, whereas a few lines later it appears in a place logically quite disadvantageous, where simply the source of the citation changes.

In my opinion the idea of a portrait “made from slightly modified scraps of several dozen selected conversations and lectures” — as Krystyna Strączek writes in the foreword — was not the best idea. A far better one would have been to select several of the best interviews and publish them in book form, or alternatively to publish a collection of Kapuściński’s golden thoughts, of which there are so many in this book. In the end, however, one must admit that this incoherent form proves a hindrance mainly at the beginning. The further one reads, the more the reader becomes accustomed to the composition and the less it troubles him.

The editors have divided the Portrait into five parts, each touching on a somewhat different strand. The first concerns, as it were, the very foundations: why Ryszard Kapuściński began writing, why he travels, how he senses his mission and his vocation. In the second chapter are placed statements defining what the profession of correspondent is, what surprises await him in Third World countries. The Reporter speaks about his extraordinary relationship with Africans. In the third part we learn mainly about how Ryszard Kapuściński’s texts come into being, how he finds “burning” topics. The fourth part in turn touches on the question of the Reporter’s fame: what brought it about, what it means to him, what it changes in his life.

However, the part that must be the most interesting for a journalist is undoubtedly the fifth chapter, in which Ryszard Kapuściński shares reflections at length on contemporary journalism. And the conclusions are not very optimistic: people think that by watching television they are learning about real events, whereas in fact they are moving only along their surface; the media show only the most attractive fraction of events, often falsifying reality; relativism is spreading; the knowledge passed on by the media is generally in the hands of very few conglomerates; at the same time the media are today not interested in conveying truth but in competition — information has become a commodity; journalism is no longer a way of life but a way of earning money. This negative state is above all the fruit of a lack of ethical preparation among media people.

It is worth adding, however, that Kapuściński absolutely does not take offence at the current state of affairs: “There is no escape from it, because the mechanism of competition is a market mechanism, and the market mechanism is the foundation of democracy. We have no better system than the market, democracy, competition. (…) It can be condemned, limited, criticised. But we cannot eliminate it” (p. 122). Kapuściński also emphasises that good literature and reportage have their place in today’s reality, which no one will take from them. “The chance of literature to coexist with television lies in its capacity to explain and deepen the image. (…) Serious reportage still exists, and it will defend itself. It is like good literature. It will survive regardless of how many crime novels or soppy romances it is buried under” (p. 125).

There are many more such sensible, measured, thoughtful opinions in this book. From it emerges the absolutely extraordinary personality of the Reporter. And if only for that reason, despite all its shortcomings, it is worth picking it up.

Paweł Pomianek

Source: http://www.blog.tolle.pl/2011/07/reporter-z-powolania/

Bookshop: tolle.pl

source: kapuscinski.info