Spominjanje Tanjuga

Historically, the role held by journalism in society is linked to the dominant views on freedom of the press as well as the specific societal, institutional and material conditions of news production. This study explores self-perceptions of journalists working in the period of socialist Yugoslavia and synthesises their recollections of journalistic orientations and performances with respect to journalism’s place in society. Methodologically, it is based on oral history interviews with former journalists, who also worked as editors and foreign correspondents from the late 1950s to 1990s, at the Tanjug news agency, considered to be the federal media system’s information backbone in Yugoslavia. By combining ‘journalistic roles’ studies and ‘occupational life history’ research, this study makes two contributions. First, it identifies the adaptive strategies of remembering used by the interviewed journalists to legitimise themselves as professionals and relevant interpreters of SFRY journalism. Second, it reveals nuances within the common, often simplified understandings of journalists as collaborators with power during socialism, and highlights the roles of privileged disseminator, monitoring analyst, and educator as particular manifestations of the collaborative function.Vloga novinarstva v družbi je zgodovinsko vezana na prevladujočo konceptualizacijo svobode tiska ter specifične družbene, institucionalne in materialne pogoje produkcije novic. Študija proučuje samopercepcije novinarjev, ki so delovali v obdobju socialistične Jugoslavije, in sintetizira njihove spomine na novinarske usmeritve in delovanje z vidika položaja novinarstva v družbi. Študija temelji na ustnih zgodovinskih intervjujih z nekdanjimi novinarji, ki so od poznih petdesetih do devetdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja tudi kot uredniki in tuji dopisniki delali pri tiskovni agenciji Tanjug, ki je veljala za informacijsko hrbtenico zveznega medijskega sistema v Jugoslaviji in agencijo z mednarodno veljavo. Z združevanjem študij »novinarskih vlog« in raziskav »zgodovin poklicnega življenja« ima študija dvojni prispevek. Prvič, opredeljuje prilagodljive strategije spominjanja, ki jih intervjuvani novinarji uporabljajo, da se legitimirajo kot profesionalci in relevantni interpreti novinarstva v SFRJ. Drugič, razkriva več odtenkov znotraj običajnega, pogosto poenostavljenega razumevanja novinarjev kot sodelavcev oblasti v času socializma in prepoznava tri novinarske vloge: privilegiranih posredovalcev, nadzornih analitikov in razsvetljevalcev, ki so specifične manifestacije sodelovalne funkcije novinarstva