Journalism America's publishers are looking for new financing models for quality journalism. 
Most newspaper publishers in the USA are not doing well economically. The available funds are being used to report on the most important current developments. International reporting and especially investigative journalism are increasingly seen as a luxury that many can no longer afford, so they are looking for alternative funding methods. One of these is the Pro Publica project in New York, which was penned by former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Paul Steiger and is dedicated exclusively to investigative research. The unusual project is financed by a foundation set up by US billionaires Herb and Marion Sandler, who are considered liberal and have provided ten million dollars a year for the first three years. They want to promote revealing journalism without interfering in reporting. 25 reporters and editors, many of them renowned former investigative reporters from the New York Times or the Washington Post, are on the payroll of the new company. The Pro Publica stories will be published free of charge in major national media such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the television magazine 60 Minutes in order to achieve the broadest possible impact.
Industry observers welcome the project. "I like the idea of doing investigative research as part of an independent non-profit organization," says Patrick Philips, professor of journalism at New York University. "That doesn't necessarily mean that all investigative research in the future has to be incorporated into such a model to ensure the survival of the genre. As long as readers are interested, traditional media outlets will continue to fund it."
Necessary alternativesInvestigative journalism is also promoted in the USA by other organizations such as the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting or the Fund for Independence in Journalism, both of which are funded by public foundations and award grants to media organizations for relevant research. In contrast, the non-profit organization Kansas Health Institute is dedicated to targeted reporting on regional health policy. Such initiatives are seen as necessary alternatives to ensure the quality of journalism. "A greater role for non-profit organizations could help all media," believes Geneva Overholser, author of the Manifesto for Change, a guide to the journalism of the future from the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Another way to save costs for publishers is the concept of user-generated content. The principle that the users of a medium also provide the content has long been practiced on online sites such as YouTube. Print publishers are following suit: the magazine publisher 8020 Publishing in San Francisco, for example, publishes two glossy magazines whose content is provided entirely by readers. The publishing house has only 19 employees: editors and sales staff, but no reporters. Both the photography magazine Jpeg and the travel magazine Everywhere live from readers' pictures and texts: they post their photos on a website where users select the best ones, which are then published in the print edition. The photographers receive a hundred dollar fee and an annual subscription.
There is mistrustThe founder of the publishing house, Halsey Minor, was also the founder of Cnet. He believes that any hobby can be turned into a magazine, for example food and cars - topics that could soon appear in the form of user-generated magazines. Traditional media makers view the model with suspicion, as it could cost them their jobs. "In some cases, such user-generated media are useful for readers," comments Sree Sreenivasan, communications professor at Columbia University in New York. "But you lose stories that you only get to read when an editor is looking for them."
Gerti Schön, New York

 
Snacks The Y&R Group Switzerland is looking for the crunchiest guitar riffs. 
Zweifel has been positioning itself in the music sector for years. To boost this year's sponsorship performance, the potato chips manufacturer is now launching the online game "Guitar Hero" on its own website in the run-up to the big open-air festivals. The Young & Rubicam Group Switzerland was entrusted with the task of helping the competition promotion to attract more attention by means of online banners and newspaper advertisements. The result is a cheeky, dynamic advertising campaign that appeals to the young target group. The world-famous guitarist Slash is energetically supported by two specially illustrated chips experts during his hot guitar solo. Doubt meets Guitar Hero III: without a doubt, it's a crunchy thing that rocks.
Zweifel has been presenting itself to the public in a rocking and crisp manner for 50 years. This year, the family business in Höngg is celebrating its milestone anniversary. On a farm in Katzenrüti near Rümlang, Hans Meier, a cousin of the father of the now active Hansheiri Zweifel, fried the first potato chips in a huge field kitchen pan. They were launched throughout Switzerland under the Zweifel brand back in 1958. Today, the brand is among the top 20 of 1,100 brands according to AY&R's Brand Asset Valuator. In addition to its fresh quality, Zweifel has always achieved this thanks to crisp advertising.
The potato chips were launched 50 years ago with an innovative idea. Ten VW buses, decorated with the Zweifel logo, drove in a "Zweifel caravan" through villages and towns one after the other every Saturday. The accompanying "sales advisors" were uniformly dressed in white uniforms and handed out "Müsterli" to the amazed public. These will probably continue to delight the public at future Openairs just as they did back then.
Andreas Panzeri

 
Internet Dailyme.com is a virtual newspaper that can be compiled into a personal newspaper from around 2000 sources. An ambitious project from the USA. 
The term "The Daily Me" is used in English specialist literature to describe a very specific form of newspaper project: This refers to the online newspaper that is updated at any time and tailored to personal needs. Ever since newspaper publishers discovered the Internet, they have been looking for ways to offer their target groups personalized home pages or newspapers. To date, however, all efforts have been hampered by the often inadequate selection of information presented. The majority of offers fail due to the inability to recognize context and connections. The added value compared to traditional media is correspondingly low. Now a project in the USA is making a name for itself that is well on the way to meeting the high standards of a personal newspaper. The website is called Dailyme.com and was launched in October last year. The creators have set themselves the goal of putting together a personalized offer for each user from around 2000 sources.
The service is in principle nothing new if you look at the numerous information services that are already struggling to survive. US newspapers in particular, such as the New York Times, already offer a comprehensive news service tailored to personal preferences with services such as MyTimes. Such information services are also establishing themselves outside the USA. In England, "Daily Me" projects from the tabloid The Sun and the daily newspaper The Telegraph are enjoying great demand.
However, Dailyme.com differs from such offers with details that make media consumption much easier. For example, users have the option of having the content sent to them by e-mail and in a printer-friendly format. The creators of Dailyme.com are of the opinion that many readers prefer to consume news on paper rather than on a screen. Another added value compared to the information services of the newspaper houses is the linking to original sources. Although many newspapers have opened their archives and overcome their fear of contact with the Internet, publishers still generally pursue a restrictive linking policy.
Dailyme.com founder Eduardo Hauser says his project is not intended to compete with newspapers. Rather, he wants to steer the daily flood of news in an orderly fashion and ensure a balanced mix. According to Hauser, there is a big difference between the content of newspapers and that of the online world in terms of format and editorial performance.
In order to guarantee a service tailored to the respective needs, the creators have analyzed the news on offer both online and offline. It took a whole year to develop an algorithm that accurately selects the vast amount of information like a giant funnel. The site processes between 120,000 and 150,000 articles a day. However, the average user only reads 10 to 15 articles a day.
Dailyme.com therefore offers news filters to sort content. Various categories such as original source, keywords and text length are stored for each article. Longer articles, for example, are not included in the print-friendly version of Dailyme.com.
"The internet and the world of newspapers invite you on great journeys of discovery," says Hauser. That's why the creators have programmed the site so that users can look up categories such as "Computerists", "Strictly Sport" or "Chic Moms" to see what content these groups consume. In the "Member Picks" categories, users can even research which sources individual readers subscribe to. This is presumably intended to counter the opponents of "Daily Me" initiatives, who use the anti-democratic nature of such projects as an argument. We recommend an article in Time Magazine entitled "Boycott the Daily Me".
Ambitious goalsDailyme.com wants to be active on two fronts in the news market. Eduardo Hauser does not expect newspaper readers to cancel their subscriptions because of Dailyme.com, but to use the service as a complementary offering. Among young Internet users, however, Dailyme.com wants to become the leading news source. Especially among those who are not willing to pay for newspaper content. And that makes Dailyme.com extremely attractive, because news consumption is free. Of the nearly 2000 sources, 10 percent are from newspapers, which provide 85 percent of the aggregated content. This content is free because Dailyme.com has partnered with the majority of newspapers from the media companies Gannett, McClatchy and the Associated Press.
Prominent newcomerIn order for the project to gain journalistic weight, the ambitious start-up recently announced a prominent newcomer. Former Yahoo news boss Neil Budde has joined the team to further develop the newspaper project. Budde writes in his weblog: "We have an exciting time ahead of us. We are only at the beginning of digital news consumption."
Christian Lüscher

 
Jung von Matt/Limmat received four nominations at the ADC Europe Awards. The following works were selected: "Blitzplakat" for SI Style in the Poster Advertising category, "Parklückenplakat" for Mercedes-Benz in the Poster Advertising and Ambient Media categories and "XXL" for Health Promotion in the Mixed Media category. Blitz Poster
Parking space poster

XXL

 
This year's Bern Marketing Day is all about working under pressure, or more precisely about the question of how not to lose sight of the essentials even under pressure. It will take place on October 28, 2008 under the title "Under Pressure - who gets into a sweat under pressure". Guests include the new Arena presenter Reto Brennwald, the future coach of the Swiss national team Ottmar Hitzfeld and the chess player Monika Seps. The Bern Marketing Day sees itself as a platform where science, education and entrepreneurial thinking and implementation are networked. It was first held in 1987. A total of over 5,000 guests have taken part in the last eleven events. 

 
ZürichTokio realized the overall appearance for Radio 11, the radio station broadcasting during the European Football Championship. The creative minds at the Zurich agency agreed that the advertising should not be lost in the mass of green grass and nobben shoes, but should be surprising and unconventional, as stated in the press release on Tuesday. Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse vouch for this, according to Radio 11:

Oliver Scotoni and Miguel Alvarez, responsible at ZürichTokio:
Dani Donati (CD), Niels Schäfer (AD/graphics), Fabian Widmer (graphics), Micha Schmid (DTP), Stefan Lemberger (consulting), Scheffold. Vizner (photography) Styling: Find a face. Animation: Combo entertainment. 

 
In the United States, not only is enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential candidate rising to unprecedented levels, but potential advertising money is also soaring to unprecedented heights. What this heralds is nothing less than every advertiser's wet dream: According to the Democrats' economic advisor, Wade Randlett, Obama could generate 100 million dollars in donations this June alone, others predict 630 million dollars by the end of the campaign in November, with most of the money flowing into TV advertising. By comparison, the CDU has set itself a spending limit of 20 million euros for the federal election campaign in Germany. Although no official limits are known in Switzerland, the SVP will also run out of money at some point. So what is left in view of the gigantic sums that flow into the US election campaign? A longing look across the Atlantic - or the launch of an initiative for the popular election of the Federal Council. The election of the head of state by the people seems to be worthwhile.

 The Swiss Press Council has partially upheld a complaint against the magazine Gesundheitstipp. It came to the conclusion that a quote in an article about back problems had been shortened and embedded in an inadmissible manner, as reported by SDA. In its statement published on Tuesday, the Press Council wrote that the article "A therapy causes a stir" in Gesundheitstipp had violated the declaration of duties and rights of journalists. the article was about a treatment method called Atlaslogy. The complaint was filed by the Swiss Association for Atlaslogy.
By shortening and embedding the quote from a doctor, the impression was created that he was critical or even negative about atlas logy, writes the Press Council. However, the doctor had in fact made positive comments.
On other points, the Press Council backed the health tip. It was within its editorial discretion to compare back therapies. The Association for Atlaslogy had to accept it if the therapy it represented was judged critically or negatively.

 
The Internet television player Zattoo has passed the European Championship endurance test. Despite a massive rush of viewers on the first match weekend of the European Football Championships, the program functioned largely without disruption with only rare losses in picture quality. As the additional load was foreseeable, Zattoo launched an updated version of the player five days before the start of the European Championships, which uses resources far more efficiently and is more scalable, and invested in new hardware to ensure that the expected viewers do not miss any ball passes, serves or pit stops, according to the press release on Tuesday. The new version 3.2.0 also comes with three new features: In addition to English, the IPTV software is now also available in German, French and Spanish, teletext is supported and TV channels can be moved and grouped.
With the new version, fourteen channels have also been added in Switzerland: Bloomberg (in French and Italian), BR, Das Vierte, HR, MDR, NDR, Phoenix, RBB, SR, SWR, Tele5, The Poker Channel and TierTV.Bloggers and users of social networks such as Facebook or Bebo can now also load a widget onto their blog or page to let readers and friends know what they are currently watching on Zattoo. A click on the widget starts the player on the corresponding channel.

 The Swiss Press Council has rejected a complaint against Weltwoche. According to SDA, it had to assess an interview with anthropologist Gregory Cochran about the intelligence of Eastern and Central European Jews. In the interview, Cochran had said that Jews had a higher intelligence quotient, but did not have a particularly strong spatial sense. The interview did not collectively disparage the Jews, writes the Press Council in its statement published on Tuesday. Nor did it encourage prejudice or factually unjustified generalizations.
 
The ban on discrimination should not be interpreted in terms of "political correctness". The media may also allow "politically incorrect" voices to have their say, the Press Council continued. In the interview in question, the readership was in a position to classify the interviewee and his statements.
However, the Press Council admits that a latent potential for discrimination cannot be overlooked. Under certain circumstances, the exclusion of a group could also result from a differentiation based on "positive" characteristics.

 Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett has created a European Championship commercial for Feldschlösschen. It is intended to draw the attention of football fans to the fact that they should not only think about football over the next few weeks, but also about beer supplies from time to time. The TV commercial shows what else can happen to fans, according to a statement from the Zurich agency. It will be broadcast during the three weeks of Euro 08. 
 
Responsible at Feldschlösschen Beverages:
Marlis Ackermann (Head of Marketing), Dominik Nyffenegger (Brand Manager Feldschlösschen). Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Beat Egger (Text), Katja Puccio (AD), Martin Spillmann, Peter Brönnimann (CD), Rolf Zimmermann, Silvia Peter (Consulting), Sebahat Derdiyok (TV Production). Film production: Snap Film AG: Michael Kindermann (production management), Luzius Rüedi (director).

 The SRG Region Basel is publicly fearing for the SRG media location Basel. A seven-member working group from Baselland and Basel-Stadt wants to make a "constructive contribution to the preservation and long-term safeguarding of the SRG media location Basel", as the Basler Zeitung reported on Tuesday. The campaign was orchestrated by Niggi Ullrich, Cultural Commissioner for Basel-Landschaft and President of SRG Region Basel. He is supported by the cantonal "media experts" Samuel Hess and Michael Bammatter as well as the bi-cantonal Chamber of Commerce President Andreas Burckhardt, among others.60,000 francs, the group wants to present a dossier in the fall that offers "a sound basis for media policy discussion", the Basler Zeitung continues. The starting point is the SRG's vague plans for media convergence, according to which the SRG's television and radio stations are to be largely merged in Zurich (see
).