To hear the author, the audience did not need to come to the Neumarkt Theater on Tuesday evening. Instead of attending the book vernissage himself, the Tagesanzeiger reporter and author of
"Deadline - How to Do Journalism in the 21st Century?" prefer to discuss the future of journalism with colleagues: Michèle Binswanger (Tages-Anzeiger), Daniel Binswanger (Das Magazin), Roger Schawinski (Radio 1), Christof Moser (Schweiz am Sonntag) and Peter Hogenkamp (NZZ).
Not surprisingly: The big breakthrough failed to materialize. THE strategy for the future of journalism was not found - despite red wine. (Maybe it was also because the majority of the participants stuck to the water...). There were, however, some creative suggestions when Seibt asked the guests: "You get a newspaper as a gift. What do you do with it?"
Daniel Binswanger mentioned as a possible model the French news website Mediapart.fr (exclusively subscription-financed, no advertising). Peter Hogenkamp would prefer to grab a regional newspaper as a media company (monopoly position preferred). And Christof Moser would be banned from editing. The journalists would have to get out again, no one would need to come into the editorial office before 4 p.m.
Seibt himself would have owed the audience the answer had not an audience member insisted. "I would make a newspaper for different groups." He explains exactly how in the interview.
WW: Constantin Seibt, let's say you get a newspaper as a gift. What would you do with it?
CS: I think one way would be to target the newspaper to different groups. One that half and half satisfies a mass audience is increasingly not being bought. First, because in the Internet age, the audience is breaking down into interest groups. Second, because a newspaper subscription is no longer a habit, as it used to be, but a commitment. The necessary intensity only comes from proximity. So you have to get close to the audience, i.e. the different groups.
Let's spin the idea further. What's behind it?
The basic idea is: Make journalism in the 21st century. And the most successful new media product is television series. In the 20th century, series producers tried to cater to mass tastes: No controversies, no big frivolities, nothing sinister, nothing risky. And often an eternally same plot. The viewer can start at episode 1, then at episode 5, jump back in at episode 30 - everything remains the same. The U.S. pay channel HBO has completely abandoned this concept. It produced complex stories with ongoing plots. Series that also show the night side, in which people die, for example. In "The Sopranos" neurotic mobsters, in "Six Feet Under" a family of gravediggers. HBO banked on this: if something really intrigues people a story, they'll tune in every time. In doing so, the network may have scared away the mass audience, but it maintained a subscriber audience made up of loud minorities of convinced fans. And it became enormously profitable.
The solution is to move away from mass tastes and target specific audiences?
Yes, because in principle, a city like Zurich functions in exactly the same way. People just officially live in the same city. There's the financial center, Langstrasse, the press scene, the theater scene, the advertising scene, the art scene, the political scene, and so on. That's where their everyday life and ambition is, that's where people really live.
What does that mean for the newspaper?
A newspaper would have to work on becoming the authoritative paper for the most diverse milieus. It would have to succeed in bringing the most current news and the smartest debates to the most important milieus. It would have to become a career obstacle for ambitious people if they didn't read it.
We eliminate the departments and instead make a newspaper for bankers, one for the art scene, one for the red light milieu.
Yes, but all in one newspaper. In extreme cases, the product could consist of a huge local section that frays out into the world. The problem with this is that it should not be provincial. Because today, a city is no longer provincial. For the art scene or bankers, what happens in New York or Shanghai is just as relevant. For the advertising scene, it would also have to report from Cannes, but also what the cracks are up to in Brazil, Belgium or the USA.
How does the newspaper get the inside scoop?
The same as today: Through journalists who stay on it. The longer you stay with it, the more you hear. The more you write, the more you know. It's like working your way into the Bundeshaus as a correspondent.
So the role of the journalist would remain the same?
Of course, there is also an aesthetic aspect. Journalists would have to get away from the uniform news style. And try to write differently depending on the case: sometimes sober, sometimes personal, sometimes polemical. The audience should either love or hate an article. The latter, because you never arouse enthusiasm without the risk of anger.
The newspaper of tomorrow polarizes.
Yes, but not through opinions. If you systematically polarize through opinions, you pretty quickly resort to idiotic arguments. The newspaper of tomorrow polarized through aesthetics: through its layout, the way it was written, the way it looked at things. I think that's the only way to survive. Otherwise, the newspaper does solid work, but work that can be found everywhere on the web.
Is the newspaper still printed?
I am pragmatic on this question. There are practical reasons that speak for it: Every print reader brings in 7 times more than an online reader, and that in turn brings in 7 times more than a smartphone reader. You pay print and distribution costs for that. So do the math. But in the end, print or online doesn't matter for journalism. Text is text.
How does the newspaper finance itself: through advertising or readers?
First and foremost, it needs convinced readers: so convinced that they pay. Advertising is increasingly disappearing for information media.
What's stopping you from building "your" newspaper?
On the one hand, the concept is still pretty raw. And even with a perfect plan, the conversion is a huge task: Even with minor changes, a newspaper has the turning circle of a tanker. And last but not least, I'd have to win the Euromillion twice in a row.
You could look for an investor or patron.
It is indeed fashionable at the moment for broadcast-conscious billionaires to buy media projects. In Switzerland, however, it's Mr. Blocher. And he has slightly different ideas than I do.
In what way?
Like many older gentlemen, he wants a newspaper to represent his opinion above all else, no matter what. After all, the business model of the Basler Zeitung tends to be that the only person who still reads it with pleasure is its financier
Finally, about your book: "Deadline" is based on your blog of the same name. Why should blog readers buy it anyway?
The blog is a candy box, the book a piece of ham. In other words, in the blog I try to amaze the reader. In the book, on the other hand, everything is systematic, in order, an argumentation, an aesthetics. The blog is meant to stimulate; you can work with the book. It's the plan behind the blog, so to speak.
Interview: Isabel Imper
