Sviatlana Kalinkina: Interview with Lukashenka – no status, not interesting and totally foreseeable

A well-known journalist does not understand why the Belarusian media interviewed Lukashenka.

Sviatlana Kalinkina, a journalist and the executive editor at Narodnaya Volia newspaper, wrote it on Facebook, commenting on yesterday's interview of Lukashenka by journalists of Euroradio, Radio Svaboda and tut.by.

“When Aliaksandr Lukashenka had a press conference a couple of months ago and representatives of non-state media began say they'd like to interview him, I (honestly!) wasn't able to understand the sense and their motives. Moreover, I asked one of my colleagues: 'Please, explain to me why you ask to interview him, if you became numb and almost pissed your pants when you tried to ask him about political prisoners not mentioning these words.' The answer was that we are journalists, and interviewing the head of state is a sign of status in any case. I do not agree. It is not status. It is not interesting. It is totally foreseeable. Our profession should have a new genre – a question to the president; how we think he will answer and, finally, the right answer,” she wrote.