A Tradition Evolves: An American Journalist's Perspective on the Media's Transatlantic Trends
by Amanda Vinicky
Participant of the Berlin Capital Program 2009
I imagine my typical Sunday morning goes a lot like Margaret Heckel’s, the veteran German journalist and author of a best selling book about German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Heckel recently left behind working in a newsroom to explore the freedom, independence and possibilities of online journalism. Still, if the scene she described to me and 15 other budding journalists during the Fulbright Commission’s 2009 Berlin Capital Program is any indication, Heckel still values the traditional printed daily: "I love reading a good two kilo Sunday paper while brewing coffee, thrashing pages around until the room looks like chaos." To my roommate’s chagrin, tearing into the paper is how I prefer to start out each Sunday too.
American, and to a lesser degree German, newspapers are struggling to maintain readership and subscription levels. The trend has given rise to predictions that even as the mediums for getting out the news multiply, the public has lost interest to the point that Heckel and I are in the minority in our love of devouring news. Given the passion and commitment of the journalists from both countries I had the privilege of meeting during the whirlwind weeklong fellowship in Berlin, I am certain that is not the case. The news may increasingly come in more formats, be it via Twitter or on a blog, but people will continue to crave the content talented reporters provide. Content that reporters will fight to provide, stories they will fight to write and to air.
- Public radio journalists on the program talked shop: Sarah Gustavus, Blakeney Schick, Caitlan Carroll, Amanda Vinicky
Fight, as did the German reporters holding a protest outside the Berliner Zeitung during our November visit. They held signs saying "Journalisten statt Automaten" (loosely translated "journalists instead of robots"). As Lilo Berg, head of the Berliner Zeitung science department, explained, the paper’s elected editorial committee called the strike because the staff of online journalists had been let go, with just weeks before Christmas. Without these employees, Berg said the Berliner Zeitung would lose the capacity to compete and grow online. The strike we witnessed was by no means the paper’s first fight for quality control. When a British conglomerate took over the paper in 2006, it laid off reporters and instituted other harmful policies. The editorial committee responded by taking out a full-page "want" ad for a new publisher in a competing newspaper (the U.K. firm must have gotten the message as the paper is under different ownership now). At the time of our visit, the editorial committee was in the midst of negotiating a syndication agreement that struck me as gutsy, but also - in the age of mergers - smart. The proposal put forth by the committee seeks to guarantee that Berliner Zeitung content come mostly from the paper’s own staff. It also proposes that when another paper prints a Berliner Zeitung journalist’s article, the author retains control of the piece. The reporter would have to give approval to major editorial changes, and the reporter would receive an honorarium. Berg’s zeal for taking these actions in the name of good journalism is obvious. It is a crusade made even more impressive given the paper’s roots as a virtual propaganda arm of the Communist Party; the Berliner Zeitung was the regional paper sanctioned by East Germany.
The consequences of this period in German history continue to bear out in the country and in the media today, a point driven home during intense discussions about the country’s immigration issues, presentations about the German education traditions and lessons about the Bundestag. As German society ages, how will political parties cater to younger generations? What did the German people learn from World War II that will help the country grapple with its large Turkish Muslim populations and their assimilation, or lack thereof? What does it mean that the Left Party, a direct descendant of the former East Germany’s ruling Communist party, has gained prominence in recent elections? Should former officials of the German Democratic Republic, or GDR, be kept from holding positions of political power, or should their pasts be left in the past? Will lessons of that past be forgotten or marginalized by younger Germans who did not live through hallmarks of their country’s modern history? There is no simple answer to any of these questions, nor are there answers to the myriad other questions raised throughout the Berlin Capital Program, but they did raise a question that in my opinion can be met with an easy response: what responsibility does the German media have to cover these issues?
- On set at Deutsche Welle
I believe German journalists have a great responsibility, just as my fellow American journalists and I bear the responsibility of covering the breadth of issues facing our nation. The Fulbright fellowship helped me to appreciate benefits each country’s respective media traditions offer as we do so. That German newspapers are significantly less reliant on ad revenue is a precious advantage, especially as companies suffering in the economic downturn decrease their spending. The German public broadcasting structure designed by the Allies after the Second World War, in which networks have a guaranteed source of income through obligatory public fees, has enabled top-notch television and radio stations that are not beholden to ratings alone. Brent Goff, an American-raised news anchor for Deutsche Welle DW-TV, told our group this structure provides a security that should make American broadcasters envious - be assured, this public radio reporter most certainly is. "Tagesschau Time," a sacred 15 minutes during which phone calls aren’t to be made because it would interrupt the news, is a German phenomenon that again triggers envy … and delight.
I also gained a renewed appreciation for aspects of American journalism. For instance, I was shocked to learn during a visit to the German public TV station MDR, in Leipzig, that news programs cannot name an accused criminal who wishes to remain unidentified. The notion of giving authorities such control, and keeping critical news hidden, was jolting even if it stems from a laudable goal like protecting a defendant who is presumed innocent.
- Vinicky with fellow Fulbrighter Sonia Smith, by the Brandenburg Gate
The benefit of an exchange program like the Berlin Capital Program is that it raises a consciousness of these matters. The opportunity to engage with my counterparts in Germany, as provided for by the Fulbright Commission, is irreplaceable. In lieu of an exchange for those who are not fortunate enough to be a part of such a program, however, outlets like Deutsche Welle thankfully offer the next best thing. For, as DW-TV’s Georg Matthes described it, the network’s function is a way to exchange cultures, its mission to offer a dialogue of "how we perceive the world."
Now that I’m back in the States, the new age of multimedia journalism means I can still get transatlantic perspective by watching DW-TV over the Internet. Not only can I continue to pursue my interest in the German experience piqued by my first trip to Berlin as part of the Fulbright program, watching DW-TV online is just as informative as reading the Sunday paper – but a lot less messy.
Amanda Vinicky works as a Statehouse Reporter, WUIS Radio, Springfield, Illinois.