How to behave in crises? How to realize that we are being manipulated? When should we report about an event and when not? Should we publish secret information? Should we disclose the name of our source? These are just some of the issues addressed at the first this year meeting of the SAJ Discussions Club. Our guest was political analyst Iulian Chifu, Director of the Conflict Prevention Center from Bucharest.

Iulian Chifu, who visited Chisinau for a number of training events organized by the Information and Documentation Center on NATO in Moldova, spoke to SAJ students on the topic of “Defense and Security Journalism – Ethics and Deontology Rules for Beginner Journalists” and then answered their questions. The professor of the School of Political and Administrative Studies from Bucharest mentioned some of the challenges that journalists face when they cover topics related to national defense and security. In his opinion, the main problem that a reporter encounters is access to information and sources. “Be very careful when someone shares information with you. So as not to succumb to manipulation, a journalist must be always prepared and documented,” the guest said.

“Should we publish information and disclose the name of the source?” was another topic discussed at the SAJ Club. In this sense, Iulian Chifu underlined that a journalist should very well know how much of the information they can use. He also pointed out to students that a reporter producing materials on issues of security and defense should know how to behave during crises and should understand what to film and how to do it and when they can or cannot report about an event.

At the end of the meeting, Iulian Chifu said that raising the local media’s awareness on topics of security and defense is very important both for reporters and for the entire society. For this reason, the guest thinks, when journalists work with information related to domestic or global security, they should be morally and ethically neutral. “Don’t let yourselves be manipulated!” he said at parting.