From sheep to wolf
René Worni on the trend toward journalism as a popular pastime for the quick-witted.
allow ourselves to be patronized any longer. This is the argument of those who say,
the public per se only wants something easily digestible, merely concise and
unfiltered information. Commercial success has proved them right so far.
But on weekdays at half past seven on the platforms, there is a profoundly
dependent, almost addicted clientele. Like a herd of sheep on the
Silent figures queue in the semi-darkness in front of a feeding trough.
Box with commuter sheets. On the train, ten out of twenty
heads over the Postille. Is this what a responsible audience looks like?
Perhaps this strange aggregate state of the bent mass is
merely a state of transition? From the not really interesting to the
perhaps once co-determinable?
There are already working signs of how things are going in this country.
could come: In South Korea, about 40000 news gorillas, so-called
Citizen journalists, their own exciting media thing. They
report from all over the country, observe, write reports
and comments. The best ones end up on the website (ohmynews.com) and
are printed once a week as a newspaper. In Norway, too
observers' comments about VG (Verdens Gang), a
printed newspaper, which is made up of around 5000 SMS and MMS messages from the
feeds the audience.
In the future, it wants to participate in the creation of media content. The
The days of small hermetic groups of specialized journalists are
counted. Journalists from L'Hebdo led by example during the
Riots in the French banlieues. They blogged from a tiny
office in the Parisian suburb of Bondy their daily experiences
War reporters right into the net. Dense authentic reports
flowed from it into the main paper. Now residents from Bondy are staying in
Lausanne and learn journalism in order to contribute with their Bondy blog to the
voice in the public sphere. From sheep to wolf: a
A lesson for media people, because the audience wants to be taken seriously.
be
René Worni, Editor
