To the point: Tired journos, tired journalism

This becomes all the more scary when you know how many mistakes can happen in reach measurement - as recently with Mediapulse's Mediawatches.

Tragedies on television, too: Really high-quality, smart and beautiful films achieve lower ratings than Bohlen, Blut, Büsi and Busen. So they are relegated to off-air times or removed from the program altogether. The dumbing down of viewers continues. And now Jeremy Clarkson, recently suspended host of the British cult car show "Top Gear," is also said to have punched one of the show's producers. Of course, letting your fists circle is no solution. But I can understand Clarkson somehow.

In online journalism: speed takes precedence over depth, salading over factual knowledge, copy-paste over creative thinking. And the whole world complains about superficial reporting that is the same on all channels. But how could it be otherwise given the conditions under which online journalists work? They are under high time pressure, usually earn less than print journalists and enjoy a lower reputation. Yet they do a tough job. Staying on top of things takes brains and wears you out. We should finally honor that. Readers, too, by the way.

In book publishing: Publishers try to ferret out what is readable and worth reading in a pile of junk after clever minds have brought new worlds to life in the enclave. But books have degenerated into a cheap article with which money can no longer be earned, certainly not from Switzerland in other European countries. But do we really want to have only Swiss magazines and Mickey Mouse on our bedside tables? The federal government promotes the creation of culture. That is good. But what about its dissemination?

My dream: It would be so nice if media politicians and media companies could finally ensure that the writing guild, the professional thinkers, sharp-tongued observers and clever entertainers have their backs free to do a good job, to really fill their role as the fourth power in the state. Because as long as journalists have to worry about Ebitda and reception fees, printing costs and postal rates, well-founded research, follow-up and probing, pizzazz and punch lines fall by the wayside. And with that, interested readers, listeners and viewers move into the unattainable distance. If writers with lateral and upright thinking and publishers with a program beyond the mainstream no longer earn a single centime, soon there will only be market-conforming, dull writing - in the worst case sponsored, i.e. infiltrated, by business enterprises that pay the printing and distribution costs out of petty cash. Is that what we want?

It takes courage to be brave.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor-in-Chief
f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch