The media traslation of „The Tanacu Case”

The media traslation of „The Tanacu Case”
By Pricop Mihail
The attempt to make an interdisciplinary approach always represents a difficult step in adjusting the level of reciprocal interdependence and influence but also of the methods of study approached in these fields, especially when, taking into consideration the object and the interests at a certain level, we are dealing with fields which are similar but different at the same time, such as: Psychology, Psychiatry, Sociology, Theology, Journalism.
I have chosen to make a scientific approach of the “Tanacu Case” so disputed and popular because of the very large number of unadvised people who have formulated several opinions and even violently attacked the problem without being in full knowledge of the facts, and their reference to the public opinion had an even greater influence on the people who were less informed than they were.
Generally, the simplest things are the most beautiful, but their beauty cannot be compared with the fascination and the pleasure of the research of the human mind’s mazes. The empathy, the altruism, the tolerance, the Christian love are similar dimensions, as finality to that come from different approaches of the same theme. If in this case the boundaries are relatively simple to make, the perspective of establishing the border between the mystical delirium of an individual who suffers from a mental illness, and of a person with an intense spiritual and actual feeling which sprang from his/her religious beliefs, or out of the spasms of an ill person who suffers from epilepsy or schizophrenia and the uncontrolled movements of a person possessed by the devil, then these borders are very difficult to establish as we are dealing with similar symptoms of feelings and livings totally different that come from fields with even more different approaches. We are thus in the position to ask the following question posed by the Orthodox majority of the country: “When will we stop believing and begin to confine our Saints”?
The people have not only the right to be informed but they also have this responsibility, because the ignorance is not an excuse. And because we all are, according to a known sociological theory "social animals” and we must communicate as well as possible in order be able to coexist in the same space. We must be free to do what we want, without, however, violating the "freedom" of those with whom we live together in the same geographical and temporal dimension, and this thing is possible only if we seek, we inform ourselves or if we are willing to accept to be educated in this respect by those who are responsible for this task.
This body of “mass information” is the media, which is forced by its ethical code to entirely transmit the information and as objectively as possible. Because the role it has in the society enables it to influence in one direction or another, a very large number of people, being equally able to contribute to the resignation of a state president (we must not to forget the American president Richard Nixon and "Watergate scandal") or to mobilize an entire country in order to help a group of people left without homes after a flood (the tornado which affected the town Făcăieni from the Ialomiţa area).
A similar "mobilization of forces" happened in the "Tanacu case" when, maybe because of the fever of that moment or other unknown reasons or impossible to be demonstrated, the journalists have totally forgotten about the respect for the code of ethics (which says in the Professional conduct: " In exercising its role of guarantor of democracy, the press has the primary duty to respect the human rights. Thus: 2.1.1. The journalist must respect the presumption of innocence")[1]. And they were the first to" have thrown the stone".
The sensational news existed, the rating was growing and once the "ball" made it became bigger and bigger. I do not wish to fall into the same trap of the stereotypy and rash judgement and to catalogue everyone in the field of journalism or to accuse somebody of something; the role of this paperwork is not to determine the guilty persons, but to properly describe the whole phenomenon. What has been omitted in those articles or reports and no one got tired to study that information, if they were present, and as we know from pathology, there is never a single cause for the present effect, but a multitude of causes which concurred in a certain context, ultimately resulting the effect perceived by us.
And if in this case the media, the "guardian of democracy" was not at the highest level of carrying out its tasks, none of the institutions involved has formally intervened to establish certain parameters, to take a certain position, to better inform the Romanian public opinion and especially the international one and avoid, thus, another denigration of the image on the international level. The Romanian State confronted with a short of crisis situation in which there were involved multiple actors of the social scene from the journalistic, medical, religious, social welfare fields, of the relations between these institutions and the international relations, and the way it dealt with this situation leaves much to be desired .
Through such bilateral works there’s not only one field advantaged but both fields and their practical implications become exponential by combining scientific knowledge with the psychological/ psychiatric ones and why not with those from the medical field, with those from the religious one, offering a different philosophical, spiritual and transcendental approach of the human element.
Intending to study the transformations suffered by an event due to its reflection through the "magic eye of the media" i came up against the great scepticism of the persons interviewed, just because of the popularity of the case. It was difficult to prove my purely scientific interest, without following a certain benefit from this approach. That is why I could not follow the normal steps in what the interview and observation stages are concerned.
Being an event that took place several years ago in a location not very easily accessible, and being quite far from it, i did not have the opportunity to study its evolution.
In the case of the interview conducted in the Penitentiary of Vaslui, it must be taken once again into account the context, for the detention conditions obviously affect the way of thought, of expression and generally the behaviour of all the people.
It could be recommend for the future a certain improvement of the interdisciplinary communication with greater accuracy and openness, through the reopening or re-foundation of common university departments (such as the Psychology of Religion), or just by the initiation of projects which may lead to the cooptation of experts in both fields, in order to make a bilateral approach to these medico-religious phenomena.

[1] http://www.crestinortodox.ro/Comunicat_de_presa_nr__1161__7_iulie_2005-105-698.html 13.06.08
Translated by Dima Laura