Media indulgences
Oliver Classen on a dilemma in our “economy of concern.”.
Oliver Classen on a dilemma in our economy of concern: Frank Amalric is an unsuspecting contemporary, but also head of department at the Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at the University of Zurich. As such, he recently told the Basler Zeitung that Swiss companies were not feeding the flood of donations for the tsunami victims for image reasons, but primarily out of "concern for and solidarity with their own employees in South East Asia".
Such good-humored shallowness is bad, after all, could
At best, global players such as ABB, UBS and Nestlé could claim this motive. What is even worse - and can probably only be explained by a shock-induced loss of judgment - is that the business editors of a reputable newspaper printed this "analysis" without comment. And garnished the outrageous article with the comment that the Basler Zeitung did not stand back and transferred CHF 10,000. The BaZ's Southeast Asia correspondent will be pleased ...
But seriously: as the bearers of this and other catastrophic news, the media always profit from human hardship and misery, whether they like it or not. This distinguishes them from other companies and makes them more susceptible to criticism, but also to hypocrisy. Because the fact is: publishers and broadcasters manage our
of all those affected. This is not reprehensible, but rather unavoidable to create publicity. However, they do this more or less uninhibitedly and unscrupulously.
While Ringier donated a whopping CHF 300,000 (and provided extensive information about it), Tamedia made do with CHF 100,000 (as well as a small note in the editorial). And the NZZ made no contribution at all. In my opinion, these relations are not coincidental, but rather an indication of the extent to which the publishers mentioned deliberately staged the "wave of murderers" and exploited it emotionally. Such indulgences are commonplace in our media society, but they only become ruthlessly visible after earth-shattering tsunamis.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
Such good-humored shallowness is bad, after all, could
At best, global players such as ABB, UBS and Nestlé could claim this motive. What is even worse - and can probably only be explained by a shock-induced loss of judgment - is that the business editors of a reputable newspaper printed this "analysis" without comment. And garnished the outrageous article with the comment that the Basler Zeitung did not stand back and transferred CHF 10,000. The BaZ's Southeast Asia correspondent will be pleased ...
But seriously: as the bearers of this and other catastrophic news, the media always profit from human hardship and misery, whether they like it or not. This distinguishes them from other companies and makes them more susceptible to criticism, but also to hypocrisy. Because the fact is: publishers and broadcasters manage our
of all those affected. This is not reprehensible, but rather unavoidable to create publicity. However, they do this more or less uninhibitedly and unscrupulously.
While Ringier donated a whopping CHF 300,000 (and provided extensive information about it), Tamedia made do with CHF 100,000 (as well as a small note in the editorial). And the NZZ made no contribution at all. In my opinion, these relations are not coincidental, but rather an indication of the extent to which the publishers mentioned deliberately staged the "wave of murderers" and exploited it emotionally. Such indulgences are commonplace in our media society, but they only become ruthlessly visible after earth-shattering tsunamis.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
