The future of journalism is not a European subject. Yet. Or is it?
The question is currently asked by journalists, media people, publishers, programmers, officials, tv-stations, geeks. Dutch TV held a highly interesting conference about The Future of Journalism with input from all over the world in Amsterdam last week. Amsterdam was also the place where it-programmers and others met to combine journalism, community interest and programming.
Some of the most encouraging contributions came from England. One is voluntary and online investigative journalism in Birmingham. Volunteers in an online community solve puzzles about high costs for a community website, parking costs in various parts of the city and other questions. How should journalists react to these challenges?
The other inspiring projects are connected by the My Society programmers, who enable citizens to keep an eye on their MPs or their bumpy streets.
We all agree on the fact, that good journalism plays an important role in society. EU spending via DG Communication amounted to € 89 million in 2008 alone. Numerous pieces of legislation are worked on concerning media, journalism etc – just think of author’s rights, copyright, libel (Rome II) and so on.
Guess it’s worthwhile to keep an eye on the changes. And enjoy the inspiring challenge.
#1 by Betterworld Now on May 31, 2010 - 12:05 pm
Is the EU going to tolerate piracy off its coast? If the journalists of the EU can show themselves to be other than in the pocket of the Israeli lobby and thereby to hold EU politicians to account on their inaction in confronting piracy by Israel, then they may have some role. Otherwise, they are an impediment to the creation of an open, transparent, participative and responsive democracy, not a facilitator of it, and will be flushed down the toilet, just as the Icelandic voters have done with their failed politicians.
If journalists want to be relevant that have to start by telling the truth, and stop just spouting the lies provided to them by well funded lobbyists.
#2 by Maciek on May 31, 2010 - 3:41 pm
Dear Brigitte,
I think you are very right to trace this topic. Journalist are really being squeezed between the public relations campaigns and the networks following information in real time. The role of journalist who is actually an intermediate between news/event and the ‘consumer’ is losing its previous weight. If in the future people shall be grouped around web-sites and not the journals then journalist should become hosts of websites. So Euobserver is the next generation of what Le Monde used to be after the II WW. I keep my fingers crossed.
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#4 by L.S.B. on June 1, 2010 - 11:32 am
EU journalism is BIASED anyhow.
Your Valentina Pop wrote about the ships to Gaza and put on only the Gazan Video. She did not put on the IDF Video that shows how the soldiers are attacked with knives and iron bars and stones (in the best rioting Muslim mob tradition).
So how can you write an article about good journalism >? Your journalism is biased.
I challenge you to add our IDF video as well.
Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo
I bet you none of your readers will watch t anyhow.
How does a Jew dare to become an Israeli ? to have a country, flag, state, citizenship, borders, army, self protection and self opinion ? Nay Nay, this is against our 2000 year old tradition where the Jews have a specific place in our culture.
#5 by demotalk on June 1, 2010 - 2:17 pm
i’m impressed about the fact that some of the comments are agressive without any added value to the core of the subject, in French it would be called un hors-sujet. So to get back to the point, how not to get eye-crossed or double-spectacled when analyzing facts be it political or european legislation or financing when all of these are immediately put in the media washing-machine is a question that needs thought and courage to tackle and fortunately some people like you ask questions. There is obviously a difference between a historian and a journalist and they handle time differently. Now again between a web-journalist and a journalist we have a new time-perception, and so a different quality of journalism, the intent is probably to be better(?) and quicker updated, to seize major issues but also to be able to target a public that follows you. Wether these facts enable a change in politics is the real question according to me. But as long as the discussion goes on we presume that we are navigating in democratic waters. (sorry for the metaphor)
#6 by Joe on June 1, 2010 - 6:59 pm
That’s really sort of amusing, when you think about it, especially taking place in the Netherlands, where the closest thing you get to journalism is a sort of Pavlovian Politically Correct Response to anything and everything, and the issues narrow to:
1) nattering complaints about a lack of public awareness about global warming.
2) yet another feature relating to that <2% of the human population that's gay/lesbian/queer/transi.
3) nattering complaints about a lack of public awareness about global warming.
4) World peace: why isn't there any, even when, as a culture, we promote being nice and non-jugemental to dictatorial autarchies?
5) That horrible lack of public awareness about recycling, and everyone's eternal, inherent, and insoluble guilt as related to it.
Between that, and the EU running "journalism institutes", I'd say the concept of a real press is dead. If it weren't for wire pieces and bloggers, we'd all be flying blind.