Dear colleagues! It just so happened that after eleven years of working in various military newspapers, I was appointed an officer of the press service of the North Caucasus Military District. I am familiar with journalistic work firsthand and hoped that my experience would help me find contact with professionals and help spread objective information about the life and activities of the troops. However, I came across some facts that make me think seriously.

For example, I don't understand the position of some civil media workers. It sometimes reaches the point of outright, shocking cynicism. Once in a phone conversation, an employee of a very reputable publication said to me:: "We have heard rumors about non-traditional sexual relations in one of the military institutions. Please comment." Well, what should I comment on? Delirium - it is delirium!

Another civilian colleague applies: "Throw in something 'scary' about the army theme!"

You start telling them how the district troops really live, how they perform their duty near the administrative border with Chechnya, and how the military develops good relations with local authorities and the population... Yes, we have almost every day brings a lot of instructive facts. But no! Not interested. They would only drag sensationalism out of their fingers to the pages of their publications. Moreover, every dubious detail should be savored as if it gives the author great pleasure. I must admit that I still cannot understand or justify such journalists. In my opinion, there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon.

First, the stereotypes of thinking formed in some narrow-minded people by the massive anti-army campaign of the early nineties.

Secondly, the incompetence, professional infirmity and even outright laziness of some journalists. Such a scribbler got into the department covering army problems. I'm sorry, he doesn't know a damn thing about them, and he doesn't even want to go into them. And the correspondent rate of lines must be submitted on time. So he begins to indulge in fables-gossip, secretly envying the laurels of terry brawlers...

And third, the imperfection of regulatory legal acts regulating the activities of mass media. Fans of scandalous black stuff feel unpunished. The army, which is in a very difficult situation, is simply not up to them. Military collectives, overwhelmed by the most acute problems, do not have the strength or time to react to the idle fictions of scribblers, to engage in lawsuits. Paradoxically, the defender of the Motherland in his Homeland turned out to be one of the most vulnerable.

Note that denigrating a person of state, as they say, in the course of execution, has always been considered a circumstance that repeatedly aggravates the attacker's guilt. So why did the defamation of the army in the media in our country become almost a sign of good taste, "progressiveness" of the publication? Anyone who tries to protect a person in a military uniform is immediately ready to hang vile labels...

Meanwhile, the provisions of the Constitution and Russian laws on the protection of the Motherland have not been canceled. Isn't it necessary to bring the legislation on mass media in line with them in order to protect the army from gratuitous, unfounded attacks by critics?

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