To the point: Mea Culpa
When you read newspapers as a journalist, it happens that you think you would have liked to have written this or that story yourself or have had it in your paper. As editor-in-chief, this often happens with a commentary or a column.
You then have two options: Either you declare your annoyance and reprimand your editors under the motto "We could have thought of that", whereby the "we" actually means "you sleeping caps", or you take yourself by the nose and get even more annoyed.
I admit, last week I was very annoyed and I am still annoyed. In his weekly media column in the Weltwoche, my dear colleague Kurt W. "Zimmi" Zimmermann addressed something that really should have appeared in our magazine. It is about the case of Hans-Peter Rohner, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the advertising mediator Publigroupe, and his non-election as SRG Director General. The fact that Werbewoche is only published every 14 days and therefore could not have featured the topic last week is nothing more than a helpless attempt at justification. It could have been published online. Online first, that is!
Zimmi's columns are actually always worth reading. Often they are sweeping, often they are polemical - both of which suit Weltwoche - often they miss the mark a bit, but they are always amusing. From time to time they also hit a sore spot. This was the case last week.
It is not only about the in itself unbelievable story that Rohner, as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Publigroupe, a company that is undergoing a fundamental and extremely difficult and delicate restructuring phase - of which no one can say today whether it will succeed - has himself put forward as a candidate for the post of SRG Director General. And then, after the election defeat, still laments that the selection criteria had changed. You can read what the whole story means for Rohner's internal and external credibility at Weltwoche.ch.
The second point that Zimmi raises - and that annoyed me even more - is the fact that, with one exception (Zimmi was wrong!), none of the otherwise so clever media observers has addressed this scandal. Neither my dear journalist colleagues nor the media scientists, who are usually available for a pithy statement, nor the scene bloggers have commented on the topic. As I said, there was one exception in the run-up to the election: The SonntagsZeitung ran an article on the topic, but not as its own opinion, rather diplomatically hidden behind the statements of a dismissed Publigroupe executive.
Actually incomprehensible! Mea culpa or perhaps also nostra culpa?
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
I admit, last week I was very annoyed and I am still annoyed. In his weekly media column in the Weltwoche, my dear colleague Kurt W. "Zimmi" Zimmermann addressed something that really should have appeared in our magazine. It is about the case of Hans-Peter Rohner, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the advertising mediator Publigroupe, and his non-election as SRG Director General. The fact that Werbewoche is only published every 14 days and therefore could not have featured the topic last week is nothing more than a helpless attempt at justification. It could have been published online. Online first, that is!
Zimmi's columns are actually always worth reading. Often they are sweeping, often they are polemical - both of which suit Weltwoche - often they miss the mark a bit, but they are always amusing. From time to time they also hit a sore spot. This was the case last week.
It is not only about the in itself unbelievable story that Rohner, as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Publigroupe, a company that is undergoing a fundamental and extremely difficult and delicate restructuring phase - of which no one can say today whether it will succeed - has himself put forward as a candidate for the post of SRG Director General. And then, after the election defeat, still laments that the selection criteria had changed. You can read what the whole story means for Rohner's internal and external credibility at Weltwoche.ch.
The second point that Zimmi raises - and that annoyed me even more - is the fact that, with one exception (Zimmi was wrong!), none of the otherwise so clever media observers has addressed this scandal. Neither my dear journalist colleagues nor the media scientists, who are usually available for a pithy statement, nor the scene bloggers have commented on the topic. As I said, there was one exception in the run-up to the election: The SonntagsZeitung ran an article on the topic, but not as its own opinion, rather diplomatically hidden behind the statements of a dismissed Publigroupe executive.
Actually incomprehensible! Mea culpa or perhaps also nostra culpa?
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
