E-interview: practice of irresponsible journalists

In journalistic reporting theory e-interview or interview conducted via e-mail is regarded as an example of irresposible journalism that neglects several ground canons of normative journalism. Moreover, questions are risen if e-interview is an interview in traditional sense - it lacks the primary dialogue, time for interviewee's responses is longer, doubt that the responder is not the interviewee, to name just a few. However, it has an advance (in the eyes of lazy journalists) - typing the transcript is not a practice.

The last example of e-interview that went wrong happend this weekend in Croatia. On Saturday editor of daily Jutranji list Davor Butković published an interview with Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader. Prime minister's PR office later that day reported that Sanader did not communicate with that journalist in the last couple of days and that the interview is a lie. Butković responded that he conducted an interview via e-mail and that probably something went wrong. On Sunday Jutranji list's competitor Vecernji list reported that the questions to the prime minister were answer by a 23-year-old, who called Vecernji list and said that he pulled a joke on Butković sending him a SMS for New Year's as Ivo Sanader and then just responding to Butković's proposal for an interview two months later.

Despite the fact that the Internet and the Web brought mechanisms changing news production process. On the basis of above example the "new" technological environment is not a priori positive or negative, but it seems that it accelerates deepening the crisis of the journalistic profession in the context of institutionalisation of journalism as part of political, economic and cultural system.