With irony out of the explanation crisis
The whole financial debacle was systematic and was therefore foreseeable - or rather would have been foreseeable if the media had approached the issue with sufficient persistence and critical distance. Guest commentary by Oliver Classen, press spokesman for the development policy organization Berne Declaration and former media editor of Werbewoche.
The intricate dynamics of the global banking collapse are overwhelming not only the economy and politics, but also the media. Twenty years ago, the end of history was still being proclaimed, now people are collectively mocking the irony of history. And are trying to conceal their own failures.
Things are gradually getting serious. The impact is getting closer, the Reduit is wobbling, a serious recession is on the doorstep of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss. Every day, the newspapers provide new figures, signs and quotes showing that the crisis circles spreading concentrically from Wall Street will soon hit the Swiss heartland. There is inflationary talk of irony. It ranges from letters to the editor ("The fact that my UBS advisor advised me to hold on to my Swissair shares sounds like an irony of fate today.") to columns ("The most biting irony in the history of the crisis: Finance Minister Paulson raked in millions as an investment banker.") to magisterial interviews ("The Federal Council has an overall responsibility and must act, even if this is bitterly ironic in view of the arrogance of individual managers.").
The public revaluation of all values has thus resulted in all kinds of ambiguous mockery and open malice, even in Swiss editorial offices. But we have known since Thomas Mann at the latest: "He who ironizes turns adversity into superiority." So the mother of all ironies is the fact that the financial crisis is also a media crisis. Suddenly we are learning in detail what journalistic market observers should have noticed long ago: The whole debacle had a system and was consequently predictable - or rather would have been predictable if the media had devoted themselves to the subject with sufficient persistence and critical distance. Instead, they preferred to sit on the edge of Paris Hilton's bed, producing borderline stupid formats such as "Deal or no Deal" or launching more and more new free newspapers that present even less information in an even more colorful way.
As is well known, Weltwoche took the cake in terms of incompetence and ignorance with its cover slogan "La crise n'existe pas". In the following issue, its media columnist manages to knowledgeably castigate the failure of the industry as an early warning system without saying a single word about the epochal failure of his own paper. Presumably Zimmi (as chief ironist) simply doesn't read his own Postille. The possibility that his publisher (as chief ideologue) has censored can be ruled out for once. Because in the same issue, there are two touches of self-irony regarding the aforementioned cover: In an advertisement - hardly coincidentally placed next to the editorial - a regional search engine denies the economic crisis in the same wording and lettering as the legendary cover. And in a review of quotes from other newspapers, the WOZ can sneer at its arch-enemy: "You can't write more clearly what is not."
Weltblätter has a section called Korrigendum, Weltwoche has Roger Köppel. So instead of taking a stand on his courageous dip in the toilet, the neo-publisher is playing games, making WOZ and advertisers blink their eyes in an attempt to dilute one of the most embarrassing headlines in Swiss press history. For nothing. The leading Anglo-Saxon media of the global financial community have been doing this far more elegantly since the beginning of the crisis. After the Lehman bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal wrote that it would not change its name even if the New York Stock Exchange went up in flames. And the Financial Times started a section where external experts evaluated the quality of its daily reporting on the big banking quake. Not unironic in view of its own standards, but at the same time a very confident gesture. Local media could take a leaf out of their book.
Things are gradually getting serious. The impact is getting closer, the Reduit is wobbling, a serious recession is on the doorstep of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss. Every day, the newspapers provide new figures, signs and quotes showing that the crisis circles spreading concentrically from Wall Street will soon hit the Swiss heartland. There is inflationary talk of irony. It ranges from letters to the editor ("The fact that my UBS advisor advised me to hold on to my Swissair shares sounds like an irony of fate today.") to columns ("The most biting irony in the history of the crisis: Finance Minister Paulson raked in millions as an investment banker.") to magisterial interviews ("The Federal Council has an overall responsibility and must act, even if this is bitterly ironic in view of the arrogance of individual managers.").
The public revaluation of all values has thus resulted in all kinds of ambiguous mockery and open malice, even in Swiss editorial offices. But we have known since Thomas Mann at the latest: "He who ironizes turns adversity into superiority." So the mother of all ironies is the fact that the financial crisis is also a media crisis. Suddenly we are learning in detail what journalistic market observers should have noticed long ago: The whole debacle had a system and was consequently predictable - or rather would have been predictable if the media had devoted themselves to the subject with sufficient persistence and critical distance. Instead, they preferred to sit on the edge of Paris Hilton's bed, producing borderline stupid formats such as "Deal or no Deal" or launching more and more new free newspapers that present even less information in an even more colorful way.
As is well known, Weltwoche took the cake in terms of incompetence and ignorance with its cover slogan "La crise n'existe pas". In the following issue, its media columnist manages to knowledgeably castigate the failure of the industry as an early warning system without saying a single word about the epochal failure of his own paper. Presumably Zimmi (as chief ironist) simply doesn't read his own Postille. The possibility that his publisher (as chief ideologue) has censored can be ruled out for once. Because in the same issue, there are two touches of self-irony regarding the aforementioned cover: In an advertisement - hardly coincidentally placed next to the editorial - a regional search engine denies the economic crisis in the same wording and lettering as the legendary cover. And in a review of quotes from other newspapers, the WOZ can sneer at its arch-enemy: "You can't write more clearly what is not."
Weltblätter has a section called Korrigendum, Weltwoche has Roger Köppel. So instead of taking a stand on his courageous dip in the toilet, the neo-publisher is playing games, making WOZ and advertisers blink their eyes in an attempt to dilute one of the most embarrassing headlines in Swiss press history. For nothing. The leading Anglo-Saxon media of the global financial community have been doing this far more elegantly since the beginning of the crisis. After the Lehman bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal wrote that it would not change its name even if the New York Stock Exchange went up in flames. And the Financial Times started a section where external experts evaluated the quality of its daily reporting on the big banking quake. Not unironic in view of its own standards, but at the same time a very confident gesture. Local media could take a leaf out of their book.
