To the point: Online first?
The BZ Prize for Local Journalism had been awarded for 25 years. After Tamedia acquired Espace Media, the prize seemed to lose some of its appeal.
Many saw the prize as a pure marketing tool, and some newspapers did not report on the prize at all, at most perhaps when one of their journalists won the award. Competition and jealousy are just too strong in our industry.
In 2010, the award was repositioned. In addition to the print and press photography categories, there were now also radio, television and online categories. The prize money per category was increased to 20,000 Swiss francs. The awards were given the name Diamant. As the "Swiss Prize for Local Journalism Print.Online.TV.Radio," the Fondation Reinhardt von Graffenried launched it with great élan. A top-class jury was sought and found.
Last week was the big day of the award ceremony. More than 700 invited guests gathered at the Stadttheater Bern to celebrate the award winners. As Guido Albisetti, President of the Board of Trustees of the Fondation Reinhardt von Graffenried and CEO of the Von Graffenried Group, explained in his welcoming speech, local journalism is the supreme discipline of journalistic creation. It was a real celebration with glamour and music. Not to be compared with the rather stuffy and stiff award ceremony of the last years. Afterwards, the party went on in the packed Kornhauskeller until the early hours of the morning.
The proud winners in the individual categories were: Sabine Kuster (Aargauer Zeitung) in the Print category, Stefan Kohler (DRS 1) for Radio and Matthias Achermann (Tele M1) for TV. The Swiss Press Photo Award went to Christian Lutz and the well-known photographer René Burri received the Swiss Press Photo Lifetime Achievement Award for his life's work.
So far, so good. But what about the online category? No prize was awarded here because the journalistic criteria for the prize were only partially met, according to the jury. Too bad. At a time when everything is talking about online and the online editorial teams are being expanded or merged with the print editorial teams, this is astonishing. Were the contributions really so mediocre or did the online journalists not dare to submit contributions at all? Or were the good stories possibly relegated to the print edition? Maybe things will work out better next year, because a prize would do online journalists working under the greatest pressure a world of good. It would enhance the value of their work.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
