Last but not least: A message with maximum entertainment value
The media world will probably arrive even faster at the cost truth that Roger Köppel already proclaimed five years ago. German publisher Michael Grabner agrees.
One sure way to get the attention of media creators is to write about them. To do that, of course, someone first has to announce something newsworthy about the writers' guild. This time, that honor falls to Michael Grabner, head of Germany's Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which publishes the German Financial Times, among other publications. He spoke plainly in Thursday's Tagesanzeiger, so plainly that the SDA ran his words over the ticker early the same morning with the quote title "Journalists too often write past the audience.
Mr. Grabner does away with the image of the pondering, digging-for-topics journalist and in return prescribes more customer orientation for the profession. In the future, before journalists start typing, they must always be clear about the purpose of the article they are writing. Informational benefit? Entertainment benefit? Or service benefit? In today's practice, the publishing man finds too many journalists who are too noble to extrapolate the utility value of their outpourings, and so the audience becomes unduly bored. The sole blame, however, lies not only with the noble journos, but also and above all with the political organizations that incessantly bombard the editorial offices with news. And this political news is simply not what people want. So let's look forward to a cost-true, utility-enhanced, politics-poor media world.
Mr. Grabner does away with the image of the pondering, digging-for-topics journalist and in return prescribes more customer orientation for the profession. In the future, before journalists start typing, they must always be clear about the purpose of the article they are writing. Informational benefit? Entertainment benefit? Or service benefit? In today's practice, the publishing man finds too many journalists who are too noble to extrapolate the utility value of their outpourings, and so the audience becomes unduly bored. The sole blame, however, lies not only with the noble journos, but also and above all with the political organizations that incessantly bombard the editorial offices with news. And this political news is simply not what people want. So let's look forward to a cost-true, utility-enhanced, politics-poor media world.
