Winter pruning in the orchid garden
The Media Pages of the General-Interest Press: Prestige Features or Merely a Passing Fad?
The media pages of the popular press: Prestige objects or mere fads? by Oliver Classen A topic that was otherwise dealt with under the headings of business, politics or culture became a discipline in its own right during the boom years. After the turnaround, however, the media as an interface and zeitgeist department is increasingly coming under pressure to legitimize itself. An interim view with case studies, but without any claim to completeness.
Mirrors are known to have a reverse side - and sometimes blind spots. This also applies to the journalistic navel-gazing known as media journalism. Having started out with the claim to look behind the scenes and on the fingers of the "media" - the fourth power after the judiciary, legislature and executive - the "fifth power" today serves less overriding social interests than publishing self-interests.
Which is hardly surprising, let alone reprehensible. Unfortunately, however, even industry experts tend to forget this realization. Unfortunately, because only against this economic motivational background of cross-media self-promotion (especially for multimedia houses), competitor bashing (such as AZ vs. Tagi vs. NZZ) and increasing attractiveness in the communications scene (by reporting on the same) does it become understandable why this "orchid department" has begun to falter for many newspapers and magazines that previously had their own media pages.
The news from Hamburg in mid-October that Die Zeit was now also shutting down its media site after Wirtschaftswoche did not only trigger "dark forebodings" at Tages-Anzeiger. Meta journalists in other editorial offices are also fearing for their budgets or even their jobs. Where red pencils reign, a department that is always uncomfortable for publishers and at best only moderately respected by the public inevitably comes under particularly strong cost and legitimation pressure.
The media director of the Aargauer Zeitung, Kurt-Emil Merki, responded to the latter at the end of September with a justification article entitled "Media pages are (more than) nice to have", whose embarrassing but also very clever conclusion was a public pat on the back from his own editor-in-chief. "Of course we also have to save money, but we are sticking to this institution": This promise by Hans Fahrländer was recently confirmed by AZ publisher Peter Wanner, according to Merki when asked by WerbeWoche. After all, we want to continue to play in the National Journalistic League A.
The ex-Tagi man admits that the crossword puzzle placed under his daily media half-page probably interests more readers than his people-oriented stories ("it's the only way I can get to the front"). Nevertheless, Merki is convinced that his prime-time or news-oriented concept with as many people in it as possible is a complete success. "We can always switch to other departments for background stories." However, with a total of 120 full-time equivalents, this option naturally remains mostly unused.
At the Tages-Anzeiger, where Merki held the same position until the summer of 2001 (and therefore likes to give his Zurich colleagues a good kicking in the shins), the opposite is not only true in this respect. Christian Rentsch knows how to fill the three pages on Thursdays "without any problems" and "really" appreciates them, as he sees his job primarily as "contextualizing and deepening media topicalities". However, he is still waiting in vain for any binding information about the future of his department.
The upcoming decision will probably depend on a possible repositioning (e.g. à la NZZ as the first half of a weekly, four-page Computerbund). Pondering games also include a redimensioning (possibly to a daily page) of the former trend section Media. Ultimately, Tamedia's Express and the associated costs are also likely to be a decisive factor. If the commuter newspaper project gets the green light from the Board of Directors, the flagship will probably have to make some editorial sacrifices.
As a team assigned to the sixth federal government, the 270-strong media team at the Tages-
Anzeiger still has no departmental status. The only privilege of Rentsch et al. is that they report directly to editor-in-chief Philipp Löpfe. A rather dubious privilege when viewed in the light of day, as Löpfe's interventions on his own behalf are still a bad general memory: in 2000 he removed a critical article about the redesign of the Group's own ZürichExpress from the paper, and in 2001 he stopped a TV review of the TV 3 format "Big Brother".
"Since our CR no longer sits on the management board and therefore no longer has direct commercial responsibility, his attitude towards our work has relaxed noticeably," says Rentsch, putting into perspective any concerns that he is under pressure from above in terms of content. In order to dispel any suspicion of corporate journalism from the outset, he regularly reports on internal disputes, most recently on the occasion of the change of management and direction at Du, Tamedia's cultural fig leaf.
Nevertheless, journalism professor Stephan Russ-Mohl stated three years ago in Weltwoche that "newspapers that do not belong to one of the large corporate conglomerates have a very special responsibility for media journalism". Which, conversely, means as much as: Thank goodness Blick and SonntagsBlick only have lowbrow TV pages.
Weltwoche, on the other hand, tried to prove its independence after the change of ownership with a cheeky portrait of the new Jean Frey major shareholder Tito Tettamanti. A more important indication of the importance of self-reflection, however, is the media column set up with the relaunch; after all, the central organ of trendy non-conformism is otherwise still practising Anglo-Saxon departmental dissolution.
In the media and IT boom of the late nineties, a fixed editorial place to think about oneself and one's peers became a matter of journalistic prestige. Hans-Peter Platz from the honorable Basler Zeitung also admits this. However, "pure cost reasons" have so far prevented Switzerland's longest-serving editor-in-chief from putting this into action. "However, we see the lack of an actual media page as a deficit and are working to remedy it," says Platz. However, in view of the economic uncertainties, he cannot and does not want to be more specific at present.
Last year, the NZZ subsidiaries Bund and St.Galler Tagblatt, which have dedicated one page a week to their industry since June 2000, were even considering doubling the size. Today, Rolf App, science and media editor in St.Gallen, is already happy "if we can maintain the status quo". No wonder, after all, the Zurich parent paper and its Friday supplement "Medien und Informatik" are also flashing stop signals. However, going backwards is taboo for the NZZ, as its boss recently explained to WerbeWoche (WW 39/02). Quote Hugo Bütler: "In contrast to other newspapers, our media pages are not a trend phenomenon, but have been an additional service for decades that is and remains an integral part of our newspaper."
Surprisingly and fortunately, Constantin Seibt from the Anarcho-NZZ is also of this opinion, even though the media page of the dusted-off WochenZeitung, which has been appearing fortnightly for a year now, is "naturally not yet fully institutionalized". However, in the new concept to be implemented by next spring, the media department will play a "key role" as a bridgehead between business and lifestyle. The WoZ could also play such a role in future as the only completely independent quality newspaper that is open to criticism, as the fifth estate in Swiss media journalism. After all, true transparency can only be achieved from a neutral distance and with professional expertise. The WoZ has the former in abundance, the latter can be worked on.
Mirrors are known to have a reverse side - and sometimes blind spots. This also applies to the journalistic navel-gazing known as media journalism. Having started out with the claim to look behind the scenes and on the fingers of the "media" - the fourth power after the judiciary, legislature and executive - the "fifth power" today serves less overriding social interests than publishing self-interests.
Which is hardly surprising, let alone reprehensible. Unfortunately, however, even industry experts tend to forget this realization. Unfortunately, because only against this economic motivational background of cross-media self-promotion (especially for multimedia houses), competitor bashing (such as AZ vs. Tagi vs. NZZ) and increasing attractiveness in the communications scene (by reporting on the same) does it become understandable why this "orchid department" has begun to falter for many newspapers and magazines that previously had their own media pages.
The news from Hamburg in mid-October that Die Zeit was now also shutting down its media site after Wirtschaftswoche did not only trigger "dark forebodings" at Tages-Anzeiger. Meta journalists in other editorial offices are also fearing for their budgets or even their jobs. Where red pencils reign, a department that is always uncomfortable for publishers and at best only moderately respected by the public inevitably comes under particularly strong cost and legitimation pressure.
The media director of the Aargauer Zeitung, Kurt-Emil Merki, responded to the latter at the end of September with a justification article entitled "Media pages are (more than) nice to have", whose embarrassing but also very clever conclusion was a public pat on the back from his own editor-in-chief. "Of course we also have to save money, but we are sticking to this institution": This promise by Hans Fahrländer was recently confirmed by AZ publisher Peter Wanner, according to Merki when asked by WerbeWoche. After all, we want to continue to play in the National Journalistic League A.
The ex-Tagi man admits that the crossword puzzle placed under his daily media half-page probably interests more readers than his people-oriented stories ("it's the only way I can get to the front"). Nevertheless, Merki is convinced that his prime-time or news-oriented concept with as many people in it as possible is a complete success. "We can always switch to other departments for background stories." However, with a total of 120 full-time equivalents, this option naturally remains mostly unused.
At the Tages-Anzeiger, where Merki held the same position until the summer of 2001 (and therefore likes to give his Zurich colleagues a good kicking in the shins), the opposite is not only true in this respect. Christian Rentsch knows how to fill the three pages on Thursdays "without any problems" and "really" appreciates them, as he sees his job primarily as "contextualizing and deepening media topicalities". However, he is still waiting in vain for any binding information about the future of his department.
The upcoming decision will probably depend on a possible repositioning (e.g. à la NZZ as the first half of a weekly, four-page Computerbund). Pondering games also include a redimensioning (possibly to a daily page) of the former trend section Media. Ultimately, Tamedia's Express and the associated costs are also likely to be a decisive factor. If the commuter newspaper project gets the green light from the Board of Directors, the flagship will probably have to make some editorial sacrifices.
As a team assigned to the sixth federal government, the 270-strong media team at the Tages-
Anzeiger still has no departmental status. The only privilege of Rentsch et al. is that they report directly to editor-in-chief Philipp Löpfe. A rather dubious privilege when viewed in the light of day, as Löpfe's interventions on his own behalf are still a bad general memory: in 2000 he removed a critical article about the redesign of the Group's own ZürichExpress from the paper, and in 2001 he stopped a TV review of the TV 3 format "Big Brother".
"Since our CR no longer sits on the management board and therefore no longer has direct commercial responsibility, his attitude towards our work has relaxed noticeably," says Rentsch, putting into perspective any concerns that he is under pressure from above in terms of content. In order to dispel any suspicion of corporate journalism from the outset, he regularly reports on internal disputes, most recently on the occasion of the change of management and direction at Du, Tamedia's cultural fig leaf.
Nevertheless, journalism professor Stephan Russ-Mohl stated three years ago in Weltwoche that "newspapers that do not belong to one of the large corporate conglomerates have a very special responsibility for media journalism". Which, conversely, means as much as: Thank goodness Blick and SonntagsBlick only have lowbrow TV pages.
Weltwoche, on the other hand, tried to prove its independence after the change of ownership with a cheeky portrait of the new Jean Frey major shareholder Tito Tettamanti. A more important indication of the importance of self-reflection, however, is the media column set up with the relaunch; after all, the central organ of trendy non-conformism is otherwise still practising Anglo-Saxon departmental dissolution.
In the media and IT boom of the late nineties, a fixed editorial place to think about oneself and one's peers became a matter of journalistic prestige. Hans-Peter Platz from the honorable Basler Zeitung also admits this. However, "pure cost reasons" have so far prevented Switzerland's longest-serving editor-in-chief from putting this into action. "However, we see the lack of an actual media page as a deficit and are working to remedy it," says Platz. However, in view of the economic uncertainties, he cannot and does not want to be more specific at present.
Last year, the NZZ subsidiaries Bund and St.Galler Tagblatt, which have dedicated one page a week to their industry since June 2000, were even considering doubling the size. Today, Rolf App, science and media editor in St.Gallen, is already happy "if we can maintain the status quo". No wonder, after all, the Zurich parent paper and its Friday supplement "Medien und Informatik" are also flashing stop signals. However, going backwards is taboo for the NZZ, as its boss recently explained to WerbeWoche (WW 39/02). Quote Hugo Bütler: "In contrast to other newspapers, our media pages are not a trend phenomenon, but have been an additional service for decades that is and remains an integral part of our newspaper."
Surprisingly and fortunately, Constantin Seibt from the Anarcho-NZZ is also of this opinion, even though the media page of the dusted-off WochenZeitung, which has been appearing fortnightly for a year now, is "naturally not yet fully institutionalized". However, in the new concept to be implemented by next spring, the media department will play a "key role" as a bridgehead between business and lifestyle. The WoZ could also play such a role in future as the only completely independent quality newspaper that is open to criticism, as the fifth estate in Swiss media journalism. After all, true transparency can only be achieved from a neutral distance and with professional expertise. The WoZ has the former in abundance, the latter can be worked on.
