Values in action: working in the media can involve tough choices. Anastasia Stepanova talks to young professionals who have to make them.

How often we hear that `the younger generation don't have a fixed system of values and beliefs apart from money'. And then people wonder where the `generation gap' is coming from.

Interviewing young media professionals in London gave me a totally different perspective of their values at work. It turns out that it doesn't matter if you work in a commercial structure or if you are employed or freelance, you still have to make choices, solve moral dilemmas and work under the pressure of deadlines.

From my Russian perspective I was interested to find out whether professional values are nationally and culturally specific or common to West and East.

The publisher

`Publishing is a big gamble,' said Gordon Wise (33), a publisher with Pan Macmillan. `You can end up getting lots of books back from the shops. In fact with every book we assume 20 per cent of what we ship to book stores will not sell through to customers. So you can never really be sure if something is going to hit.'

Ninety-eight per cent of what they do is commercial, otherwise they wouldn't survive--so their choice of books is mainly based on profit. But even then there are hard dilemmas. Should they, for instance, publish a sensational autobiography of a criminal which will bring in lots of money or should they resist the temptation?

`Some people criticize us for doing a book like that, "How can you celebrate someone who commits crimes?",' says Wise. `In my view, it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis.' Once he decided to publish a book by a criminal because he saw it as an `important social document'. It was written by a man who had been in prison for 35 years for killing a gangster. `I felt then that this was a particular voice which needed to be heard.' But he decided not to publish another book by a man who had sold arms to an African country and might not have been operating within the law. `I was very interested in his story, but I felt that if I published it I would really be promoting him and the sorts of things he was involved in.' The first author had made it clear that he had repented, while the second hadn't.

`A book has to have redeeming features if you are in quite an ambiguous area,' he says. `A lot of books of this type sell anyway whether they are quality or not. So the choice is left up to each editor.'

The TV producer

K (31), a freelance television documentary producer, believes that values carry a personal character. `They exist only in the workers, in our individual selves--and we may or may not bring them into the workplace.'

In the UK television industry, there are regulatory bodies such as the ITC (Independent Television Commission) or the Advertising Standards Agency, which issue guidelines which are supposed to set a code of conduct. `Often, these standards are not implemented and boundaries are crossed,' says K. In her view, professional guidelines and personal values are only `virtual' until they are put into action.

`As a television producer, I'm interested in what makes people tick on an individual and collective level,' she says. `Culture, beliefs, the dynamics of our existence!' Above all, she is interested in using documentary film as a tool to expose injustices. `Making television programmes just for the sake of it does not motivate me.'

Her biggest challenge is `working within the constraints of what is essentially a hugely commercial and ruthless industry, and producing documentaries which can bring some significant contribution to others'.

K thinks that because of the desire to appeal to everyone, TV documentaries today all tend to look the same and television channels are unwilling to take risks and let go of formulas they know work. `The irony, in my view, is that this output becomes patronizing fast food. In this current climate, my challenge is to hold on to my ideals.'

As a freelancer, K has to make difficult choices many times a year. In her `nomadic existence' she can choose the programmes she wants to work on and with whom she wants to work. On a financial level, however, `it is either feast or famine'. `The dilemma often appears when I have no choice but to pay the rent and to work on programmes which I would rather stay away from.'

Professional issues often throw up moral dilemmas. On the last programme she produced, K's editor told her to cut out a valuable contributor. `I tried to convince him that this person was a constant source of help and inspiration in the making of the film, but no luck. Though this is very much part and parcel of this kind of work, it was a difficult choice to make.'

The photographer

`As a freelance photographer I do what I want and I don't have to meet anyone's expectations,' says Greg Williams (28). `Money has never been a driving force in my career.' In 1992 he won the Ilford Young Photographer of the Year award for his work covering the drought in Zimbabwe.

`It's now better from the business perspective and in terms of money too, but it just happens this way because people appreciate what I am doing and they want to commission me. Of course it helps a lot when you can do what you want but not what somebody else tells you.'

He has recently launched a book of fly-on-the-wall photographs of film stars, On set, published by Vision On and Growbag. `I am always looking for the opportunity to build trusting relationships with the people I photograph. When I was doing this book of celebrities I wanted to show them in off-spotlight situations, when they are as they are. I didn't exploit the commercial value, but wanted to produce a book I could be proud of.'

The video editor

Emma Cromwell (25), graphic designer and video editor at Millennium 7 TV company and MRA Productions, has quite often had to find a compromise between what she wants to do and what she is expected to do. `I wish I had more time to play with my ideas, to be experimental.' But there's little room for that when you are limited by criteria and deadlines.

`At some places I used to work, the staff didn't really care about the jobs they were doing, they just went with the flow. I can't do that. I have to put everything into what I am doing otherwise it becomes boring.'

She thinks her values come from her upbringing. `Christian faith was lived out in my family, so I used to take it for granted. Now I appreciate the value of it.

`Working in the media you realize how much of it is based on money and commercial interest. It's quite annoying because there seem to be lots of people who would like to do their work creatively, but never get the chance because they are not seen as people who can make lots of money.'

Also there is a paradox--the role of routine in apparently creative work. Cromwell tries hard to keep being creative when she has to do something which is not that inspiring. `It's quite a challenge.'

The designer

Tapio Snellman (31), architect, designer and co-director of Neutral new media company, also finds it challenging to keep a balance between hard core business activity and more experimental work. `The ideal would be to do something conceptual and valuable but well paid,' says Snellman. To keep going he and his partner have to take on some projects with zero content. `I wish everything we did had some value in it, not just money.'

Because they are a three-man (two partners and one employee) company they have to work under pressure all the time. Everything they do--from websites to animations and graphic design--is usually done by much bigger companies. `Often you have to ignore social life which can be quite detrimental to your creativity. If creativity declines we have nothing to sell: it's the only product we have,' says Snellman.

Apart from the dilemma of `survival' (creativity verses money) there is the issue of copyright. Sometimes you have to compete to get a project and present your ideas to the client. Often the ideas are taken and given to a less expensive design company to realize. `You can see your ideas put into practice by others. It's a pure brain drain. Incredibly unfair but that's how the design industry often works.'

So what about copyright law? `It's very difficult to prove as it's easy to cover it up: to change font, shape, colour.' Because they are far from being a big company lawsuits are risky. `In some cases going to court might form the reputation that you are strong and stand up for your ideas,' says Snellman. `At the same time it may give the impression that you are difficult designers to deal with.'

Snellman says that he constantly asks himself what value the work he is doing has. `Sometimes it clearly does not have any value as such, but all experience is valuable for me. `I think I'm an artist in the sense that I have to experiment constantly and create not for the sake of money, but for an aesthetic and conceptual value.'

We think of values as personal and yet they seem to be universal.

My country has undergone a lot of political and economic turmoil in the last decades, which shuffled our values and beliefs. New laws and standards are now being applied.

When I started this article I didn't aim at a comparative analysis of young people's values in different countries. But when I was listening to the interviewees I could easily identify them with my friends back in Russia. Young people in both countries struggle with exactly the same dilemmas. For instance, similar relationships with the copyright law that doesn't protect much, the same dilemmas of whether to stand up for your personal concepts or to go with the flow and not jump over your boss's head.

In the Soviet era, people accepted the notion of uravnilovka, meaning `being equal, being like everyone else', `your personality does not count, the collective is what counts'. Now my generation has a tendency to lean to another extreme--individualism bordering on selfishness like anywhere else. As usual the ideal lies in the golden mean.

As for myself, as a 23-year-old graduate in linguistics, after my internship in Britain I will have to face the music: either to get a job in my field and be underpaid or get a well paid one but totally out of my interest zone.

Our values are constantly being challenged by the difficult choices we have to make. Without this, they become amorphous and abstract. It is up to each individual to live them or not.