To the point: Bestiary
Quality in the media can be debated for hours at industry meetings and discussion panels. The direction the conversation takes depends very much on the people who are leading the debate.
So let's try to bring some order into Speakers Corner. First of all, it can be roughly divided into media professionals and media consumers - whereby one must bear in mind that media professionals are also always media consumers. The reverse is not true, with the exception of the group of letter writers, online reader commentators and reader reporters. Fortunately, they do not appear at industry meetings and discussion panels.
So let's concentrate on the realm of the actual media creators and start at the top with the publishers. No publisher will say that he doesn't care about the quality of his media. He firmly believes that quality is important. But he often fails to define this quality precisely. Nevertheless, he can defend it excellently at industry meetings and discussion panels. In second place come the CEOs - although a distinction must be made here between former journalists and pure number crunchers. The former journos among the CEOs can't always completely suppress the feeling of shame that occasionally afflicts them when they come face to face with reality, while the number crunchers, on the other hand, don't know any such feeling: what's good is what's cheap and what sells. Despite arguments that are not entirely congruent, both are able to defend their positions eloquently at industry meetings and discussion panels.
Now comes the army of editors-in-chief. A wide range of opinions opens up. You'll find everything from rosy-cheeked optimism to the darkest cultural pessimism. They never agree, but their appearance at industry meetings and discussion panels is usually amusing. Or they don't even come because of toothache.
The next group is that of former editors-in-chief. They can still be found at industry meetings for some time, but rarely on the discussion podiums anymore. That's a good thing, too, because they practice media age gymnastics: articles in media blogs, comments on articles in media blogs or guest contributions at friendly editorial offices. The guiding theme: Everything used to be better, and in general ...
Let's move on to the small group of so-called professional media critics. They are often to be found at industry meetings, but never on the discussion panels. As a result, they have to make their displeasure known via break talks, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. University media researchers are also given asylum in this group. No one outside wants to listen to them anyway.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
pc.meier@werbewoche.ch
