Just figured this has been the longest time I did not publish anything here. To add insult to injury mindwork.net was down for over a week because \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hold your breath \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I had forgot to pay for the domain name. Seriously. Well here we go for another five years. Talking about years it will soon be a year that I left journalism for PR. Oh yes, I miss it a lot sometimes but then I have a tendency to glorify the past. Three loose toughts on journalism. . .<\/p>\n
Good journalism is still there and the web is helping it<\/strong> Let’s all Facebook & Tweet and the world will be cool again<\/strong> We’re all in the gutter. . .<\/strong> I believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just figured this has been the longest time I did not publish anything here. To add insult to injury mindwork.net was down for over a week because \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hold your breath \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I had forgot to pay for the domain name. Seriously. Well here we go for another five years. Talking about years it will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miracle-drug"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwork.net\/myblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTalking to my friends in joruanlism and publishing I am astouned by their negativity a.k.a. “the web will kill us all”. It won’t but you’ll have to adjust pretty soon or you’ll be gone. In Austria the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the union and the publishers basically states that print journalists and online journalists are two entirely seperate groups. Say hello to reality. I know some colleagues in the business that for their lives wouldn’t write web-only or web-version first. I have a pretty simple but probably unpopular solution: Set them free. As print advertising goes down and online revenue goes up this should also be reflected in the ways journalism targets platforms. I am not saying that we should switch everyone over and treat print like a dying breed but change needs to be embraced. Period.<\/p>\n
\nI play hockey. I started 20 years ago and I am an addict unwilling to undergo treatment. It’s the fastest team sport in the world and if you don’t keep your head up you will get checked and you will get hurt. You can tell great from not so great hockey players by their behavior when they don’t have the puck. Not so great hockey players will follow the puck wherever it goes, they’ll charge it deep into the corners and suddenly find themseves out of position. Great hockey players have the puck follow them. With revenues dwindling publishers either freeze or go after every little stick thrown their way. Facebook and Twitter are great channel to engager your audience. We’ve started to build solid hockey community during my time at the Kleine Zeitung but they’re one small step. However I have to admit for some publishers they are actually a big step and the second biggest thing after people started to write letters to the editor. Audiences need to be engaged, but then you have to channel their engagement to your platforms. Publishers decry how the value of content has gone down by content becoming freely available on the web but they hardly ever look at their content and ask themselves if their content is WORTH to be paid. Deliver unique content and yes you will be paid – there are countles examples.<\/p>\n
\n. . . but some of us are looking at the stars. I read this beautiful interview with media economist Bernhard P\u00c3\u00b6rksen in the German “brand eins” magazine. Never heard of him, but I like the way he thinks. Bad news are good news and this is now turning back on journalism itself. Let’s face it: journalists love bad news. They just happen to sell easier. Now it gets down to them and their inner conflict of walking that thin red line between doing PR, journalism, corporate publishing and such. Freelancers have been walking it forever. P\u00c3\u00b6rksen has it figured – journalism won’t be able to survive the way it did over the last 100 years. But it thrives on the new platforms that are soon emerging and yes there is money to be made. Of course you might as will keep whining wbout how bad times are and await your fate.<\/p>\n