[Penguin]

a delayed reply, had to work on the holiday yesterday, doing some none-journalistic enhancements of reality

Originally Posted by Skybird

This I have not said. I said that journalists are a heavily biased, green-left-leaning crowd that leave the journalism school and do not know crap about the basics of their profession, regarding basic writing and research skills, and thus produce heavily biased politically correct opinion pieces instead of sober, independently confirmed and verified-by-themselves fact reports. I also mentioned uncritical paste-and-copy, which you especially see in internet media.

Take this, that also is just some days old:

http://www.cicero.de/berliner-republ...hr/54351?print

And yes, I stick to it, by political sympathy and voting habits, journalists of this new missionary branch by two thirds to three quarters are Green-red followers and voters.

This is only anectodical evidence, but I had a student working at my company who just recently graduated journalism school. From what I could tell from the classes and teaching materials, they still learn the basics of this profession, which an emphasis on research skills.
Her grad piece was about a comparision how certain topics are handled in a feminist magazine and a posh women's mag. Both outlets were critically analized and afaik thero was no pressure by her prof to write in either direction.
So the important stuff is still being taught, the education is ok - the students still get their Handwerkszeug. The question is how they use it. This is comparible with the baker, who still learns how to form bread by hand, though sadly the reality of the job in 2013 is often only heating up pre-fab loafs.

Bok doesn't say anything different in his article - unlike you, he doen't deny that the basics of the trade are still taught in journalism school; the education is still there. Interistingly enough, Bok complain about the same things like David Simon in his testimony in fron of the US Congress: absence of keeping the nose to the ground. Simon said, that when he was a crime reporter, he hung around in cop bars, to him the bst possibility to get informed about what's really going on and to get the perception if the beat copper - what Bok calls "Volkes Stimme".
I see the same in our little local paper - which has a circulation of 330000 and is a conservative paper. They just copy and past the press releases of the police department, seldom an investigation by themselves.

That being said, the bread and butter journalism for most local reporters in Germany is still being at exciting events like the opening of a new pool or reports about potholes. I say for most, as the numbers show that regional papers are still huge in Germany - next to tv the number one source of news of the majority, this will probably change over the next years when the web will be the No.1.

Still looking for a poll which confirms that 3/4 of the German journalists are confessing Greens. Btw: In the Cicero piece Bok claims it be 1/3, though also without quoting a source.
And what Bok writes about his perception of socialist politicians being in any political talk show, in comparision I just would like to point about how many ISM lobbyists are permenently sitting in talk shows.

Originally Posted by Skybird

What also should be said is that the political parties and minister presidents of the federal states take TREMENDOUS influence on the management decisions and content decisions of the state-run TV channels ARD and ZDF. That refers both to personnel decisions for prominent or key posts, and attempts of censorships in news reports.

Just a short remark regarding the public tv stations, as this is a whole new topic which extend the bounds of this discussion tremendously :
The influence of political parties, but also NGOs like churches or unions was intended. These organizations have been seen to represent the public opinion at the time when the broadcast treaty (Runfunkstaatsvertrag) was passed. The intention was not to make but to prevent a government-run media.

From my experience of 2 years working for a weekly political talkshow on public tv, I can tell you that I have not witnessed any censorship - mind you, I worked on a tech not a journalistic postion. The opinions from greens, islamists, communists - even those from conservatives were broadcasted as recorded. Though I have seen my amount of sloppy or outright terrible research.

Originally Posted by Skybird

The very very few TV reporters I may put some trust in, are all from a very old guard. They are a species that goes extinct.

I agree, but this streamlining out of fear to step on someone's toes is sadly something we don't only see in reporting but also in politics as a whole.

Originally Posted by Skybird

I also refuse your generalization of all photos always being a lie, no matter how they are pre- or post-processed.

I haven't written that, I said that "objective photojournalism is a lie"
Thankfully you write the arguments in your next passage:

Originally Posted by Skybird

While the photographed perspective is a reduction of the total reality it was taken from, the original article I linked describes a trend in digital manipulation that represents a far higher and serious degree of manipulation than just the way the original image was chosen top get shot. It also represents a further reaching intention. At least these three categories of image-making should be differentiated, I think: 1. being in a situation and just photographing what one sees in the event and/or situation, 2- then not shooting any scene, but intentionally choosing just some special, selected scenes and maybe even arranging them, and3. finally the digital, totally arbitrary manipulation of the RAW image afterwards, where only your skill in handling the software is the limits. The two latter are close to each other, and maybe identical by intention, but the latter allows more freedom. The first is the most distant both in intention, and possibilities.

In addition the choice of the point and the field of view, the angle, even selecting shutter speed or the exposore time is already where a manipulation, intentionally or not, already starts.
When developing analogue film, you could alter the meaning with a wipe of your hand - under/overexposing details of the pic, thus altering the original. Today you have a mouse in this hand.
I don't think the Spiegel article is bad, if it helps to put it into the minds of the public what should be common knowledge since the first cavemen painted their walls: image!= reality.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Corrected that for you. One should also mention Die Zeit (moderately left), Tagesspiegel (centrist), Spiegel (huge variance from conservative to very left, depends heavily on the writing crew doing an article), and FOCUS (turning news into showbiz mostly, I consider it to be something like PM - Peter Moosleitner's Interessantes Magazin...).

Süddeutsche -> radical left
So you are saying that the second biggest national paper in Germany wants to overthrow the state? A paper where even Goldman Sachs indirectly has shares and where other papers from the same owner took much crap for supporting the idiotic Stuttgart 21 project - something all the Green's are furios about? C'mon!

Same with Die Welt-> slightly left?
As Tribesmen in his charming way already pointed out: both Bild and Welt are owned by the same company, it's not uncommon for Springer journalists to switch between them. Die Welt has exactly one left writer: Broder.

And the only thing that was communistic about the taz is that until some 25 years ago, all employees got the same salary. The taz is just like the Greens a direct offspring of the '68 generation.

I agree with your assessment of Die Zeit - just pointing out that it is the still best weekly paper we have in Germany - next to the Jungle World - the best left paper, which sadly nobody reads...

Originally Posted by Skybird

I personally read also sites and blogs and newspapers like this: FreieWelt.net, Richgard Herzinger's Freie Welt Blog, Ortner Online, Cuncti, Critical Science, Eigentümlich frei, Andreas Unterberger's Tagebuch, DetlevSchlichter.com, Wertewirtschaft.org, Ludwig von Mises Institut.com (German and Engoish sites), and I often switch to sites that get linked to in articles from the above.

And that are only the frequently visited German links I use.

Though I don't mind reading different opinions, there's too much fear of Feminazis and too much Austrian economics cult for my taste to use them as daily new sources