Skybird
10-10-13, 07:48 AM
From today on: http://www.huffingtonpost.de/
I'm split about it. On the one hand newspaper in Germany are very streamlined and politically correct, with a very low standard of aggressive journalistic research quality and verification of info one is about to type into the machine, with the online representations being even worse compared to the print media, since here even the the standards of the mere, basic journalistic craftsmanship already are extremely low. The vast majority of political correspondents and journalists over here practice complaisant "Hofberichterstattung" or the other extreme: populist indignation. Also, many newspapers have strict ties to political camps or parties, and especially bad in German media is that over here the difference between opinion pieces and attempts of objective fact-reporting is ignored most of the time, delivering personal opinions and beliefs as facts. In this regard, the big names in American newspaper making still are simply this to German newspapers: superior. That might be different with TV channels, in Germany we have two state-run propaganda channels which you even have to pay for if you do not own a receiving device of whatever a kind, and their leaderships and at the decisiuon-making level these are heavily influenced and manipulated by political parties and minister presidents' offices. They remind me since some years very treongly to the format they had in the GDR,m the "Aktuelle Kamera". Even the language used, and the typical phrases and patterns of state-conform propaganda now are the same.
Seen this way, the HuffPost may be an enrichment.
On the other hand it makes business by not paying authors, and selling the idea that just the work itself is its own reward and must not be financially rewarded, which I have a problem with: work for loan, loan for work is a fundamental principle to me. But then, no author is forced to work for nothing, and many bloggers and authors are attention craving and voluntarily accept to get "payed" by attention they get. Considering the self-exposition people voluntarily chose for in internet media, in social networks, revealing most private, even intimate, even exhibitionist stuff about themselves, "attention" seems to have become something like a virtual currency people trade in, and accept to get payed in.
Putting all these pros and cons together, I conclude the possible gains may exceed the to be expected losses, and so in the end I welcome the Huffington Post now being published with a local German edition. That it strongly cooperates with the weekly magazine FOCUS, I like less, since Focus already is breathing the odor of journalistic plagiarism very much. If this influence is too strong, it may threaten to undermine the one major argument in favour for the HuffPost: to add a new news outlet that indeed is new and different from the tame mainstream platforms.
In the end, I disagree with the thesis that a large number of mediocre outlets necessarily compensates low quality in content with greater choice to pick your readings from. To me it just is a bigger number of bad quality news outlets. With the EU, America and China and Russia cracking down hard on bloggers as well, even this aspect may play a more and more minor role over time. What it comes down to is that the political systems both in the East and the West do not like independent press and interference by well-informed citizens.
I'm split about it. On the one hand newspaper in Germany are very streamlined and politically correct, with a very low standard of aggressive journalistic research quality and verification of info one is about to type into the machine, with the online representations being even worse compared to the print media, since here even the the standards of the mere, basic journalistic craftsmanship already are extremely low. The vast majority of political correspondents and journalists over here practice complaisant "Hofberichterstattung" or the other extreme: populist indignation. Also, many newspapers have strict ties to political camps or parties, and especially bad in German media is that over here the difference between opinion pieces and attempts of objective fact-reporting is ignored most of the time, delivering personal opinions and beliefs as facts. In this regard, the big names in American newspaper making still are simply this to German newspapers: superior. That might be different with TV channels, in Germany we have two state-run propaganda channels which you even have to pay for if you do not own a receiving device of whatever a kind, and their leaderships and at the decisiuon-making level these are heavily influenced and manipulated by political parties and minister presidents' offices. They remind me since some years very treongly to the format they had in the GDR,m the "Aktuelle Kamera". Even the language used, and the typical phrases and patterns of state-conform propaganda now are the same.
Seen this way, the HuffPost may be an enrichment.
On the other hand it makes business by not paying authors, and selling the idea that just the work itself is its own reward and must not be financially rewarded, which I have a problem with: work for loan, loan for work is a fundamental principle to me. But then, no author is forced to work for nothing, and many bloggers and authors are attention craving and voluntarily accept to get "payed" by attention they get. Considering the self-exposition people voluntarily chose for in internet media, in social networks, revealing most private, even intimate, even exhibitionist stuff about themselves, "attention" seems to have become something like a virtual currency people trade in, and accept to get payed in.
Putting all these pros and cons together, I conclude the possible gains may exceed the to be expected losses, and so in the end I welcome the Huffington Post now being published with a local German edition. That it strongly cooperates with the weekly magazine FOCUS, I like less, since Focus already is breathing the odor of journalistic plagiarism very much. If this influence is too strong, it may threaten to undermine the one major argument in favour for the HuffPost: to add a new news outlet that indeed is new and different from the tame mainstream platforms.
In the end, I disagree with the thesis that a large number of mediocre outlets necessarily compensates low quality in content with greater choice to pick your readings from. To me it just is a bigger number of bad quality news outlets. With the EU, America and China and Russia cracking down hard on bloggers as well, even this aspect may play a more and more minor role over time. What it comes down to is that the political systems both in the East and the West do not like independent press and interference by well-informed citizens.