In Hollywood rules the so called "star system". Basically, a person can have the chance to count only if present. If you're not there you don't exist: that's what the star system is about. But there is no need to travel to Hollywood in order to find a star system. Any press card is sufficient to live like in Hollywood. Journalist means star, no way. Any journalist lives to become a super-star. Any journalist wants to be the king of this star system. So pressmen basically are everywhere, because this is the only way they have to be. Of course they simply are, according to the press world commandments. Anyway, put into the star system pressmen have to appear. It doesn't matter how, the only thing that really counts is to appear. There are several methods to live the star system: one of the most popular is giving the impression to be in a place without being. In this case pressmen work comfortably at their own office in their home town, writing as they are somewhere else. For example, when a journalist in Rome has to write about a F1 race which took place in Prague, at the beginning of his article he will write «Prague, 13 March...». Rules and professionals ethics would require the journalist to write the name of the city where he is, but rules and professional ethics are for beginners. Once a man gets a press card he becomes a journalist. And journalists have no ethics and, above all, are gods. Thus, they can modify rules at any times. Using the name of the city for their articles, journalists can show the world to be correspondent, to travel, to be real scoop-hunters. They basically can demonstrate to be there, in full compliance with the star system basic rule: if you're not there you don't exist. Even if it is totally untrue, pressmen are everywhere and in this way they exist.
A second method to be talked about is a false-scoop. Starting from something true but obvious, the smart journalist realise a false scoop. Let's take a draft conclusion of European Council meeting, for instance. According to standard procedures, the final text is drafted only once the ministers responsible for certain issues held their meeting. Ministers work in fact for the heads of State and the heads of governments, whose goal is to take a final decision on what their minister previously worked on. So, it is logic having a white part in the draft conclusion if ministers didn't held a meeting. But it is logic only for those who know how the European Union works. Pressmen in search of visibility will flash as a scoop the fact in the draft conclusions of the EU summit no decision have been taken yet on that particular issue. It could be said that this journalist, along with the colleagues who publish this false scoop, is misleading the truth, and that's right. But you can't be an ordinary person when you live in a star system and, of course, it is not possible being an ordinary person when you are a journalist. In this case what is not a scoop is sold as a scoop. That's the press, baby!
Last but not least, the third most common way to appear is be present. It is not necessary writing, it is not important whether a pressman can write, the most important thing is to be physically there. For certain people journalists are important only when they work for some media, and it doesn't matter if in that particular occasion journalists are going to write. Most of the time journalists are there only for the free lunch, but this is another story. In somehow, always related to the star system. And in Hollywood as in the press world, if you're not there you don't exist.
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