“……Criticism

It is argued Bild’s thirst for sensationalism results in the terrorizing of prominent people (such as TV presenter Charlotte Roche) and stories are frequently based on the most dubious evidence. The journalistic standards of Bild, or the lack thereof, are the subject to frequent criticism by German intellectuals and media observers.

* BILDblog ([1]), a German weblog that when founded was dedicated solely to documenting errors and fabrications in Bild articles, is among Germany’s most popular blogs. In 2005, BILDblog received the Grimme Online Award for its work. Since 2009 BILDblog also reports on errors and fabrications in other newspapers from Germany and elsewhere.

* Heinrich Böll’s 1974 novel The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, and the 1975 movie based on it, used a fictional stand-in for Bild to make a point about its allegedly unethical journalistic practices. Böll’s public words on the Bild’s coverage of the Baader-Meinhof Gang activities in the early 1970s were: [what Bild does] isn’t cryptofascist anymore, not fascistoid, but naked fascism, agitation, lies and dirt.

* In 1977 investigative journalist Günther Wallraff worked for four months as an editor for the Bild newspaper in Hanover, giving himself the alias of “Hans Esser”. In his books Der Aufmacher (Lead Story) and Zeugen der Anklage (Witnesses for the Prosecution) he portrays his experiences on the editorial staff of the paper and the journalism which he encountered there. The staff commonly displayed contempt for humanity, a lack of respect for the privacy of ordinary people and widespread conduct of unethical research and editing techniques.

* In 2004 Bild was publicly reprimanded 12 times by the Deutscher Presserat (German Press Council). This amounts for a third of the reprimands this self-regulation council of the German press declared that year.”

This might be an odd personal quirk, but I like to – and need to! – get paid decently. Old media brands tend to pay very well. New media organizations usually pay really badly. It’s very difficult to make money on a blog without giving speeches or consulting – which creates the kind of conflicts of interest that serious journalists need to avoid.

“Kai Diekmann (…) is a journalistic celebrity of a sort we don’t have here:”

It’s so sad you were not attending the following discussion.
Nobody of the panelist understood that the brands of the publishing companies (or they don’t dare to say so) are just nothing with those key journalists, like Kai for bild and bild.de.
If those guys (and I guess Kai got the point) discover their value in terms of direct profits by publishing on their own brand and further realizing how to get the bugs directly (more or less easily, if you know how to handle Google ), they will fade away instantly and the users as well.

That’s the main task for publisher! How to be attractive to top journalists (= top ego) and that those guys will stick to the publisher brands.
Beside the monetary aspect, there is one solution: Unique users!
Journalist want as many people as possible listen to them. If the reach of an old economy top print brand is lousy in the web, why a top journalist should write for them? Reach-investments in terms of unique users should be the prior strategy for publishers.

As of today the french government is giving away 200 000 free newspaper subscriptions to youths aged 18 to 24 in an attempt to save the print press…
read a summary here

http://www.dailycatessen.com/2009/10/free-annual-press-suscription-way_28.html

would be glad to have your thoughts on this…

I will give Mr. Diekmann credit if he really manages to get involved into a dialogue and uses his blog to respond to criticism other sites like bildblog.de articulate every day. Until he does so, this is nothing but another channel for his PR.

1. They “fix” their numbers offline and online
2. The so called “Volksprodukte” besides the WWII soundish name are clearly a breach of the indipendence of journalism (compare the list of best tested notebooks of computerbild and contendor chip.de …. computerbild seems to be biased towards medion, which is the manufacturer of the “Volks-PC”).
3. The main theme seems to be bashing the poor and FUD in the Bildzeitung
4. It’s NOT quality journalism, any studen of a journalism school here in germany can tell you that
5. They are requarly violating the rules of humanity by for example showing faces of people accused of criminal acts (which they are not allowed by journalism regulations)

Yeah, he is a attentionwhore. We give him what he wants.

I’m beginning to think that excess alcohol consumption made the golden age of journalism possible. When you folk stay sober and talk in public, you’re pretty much a disaster.