PRIX EUROPA

In the "Temple of old media", as Danny Schechter referred to the Haus des Rundfunks in his key note speech, about 70 people from different media came to listen to prophets of emerging media, hoping for answers to the dilemma of our profession. The cult of journalism is lacking the miracles we all expected from it: no wealth, no creativity and no fame. We look to what the others are writing and simply repeat the mantra.

Hosted by Jörn Kabisch, acting Editor-in-Chief of der Freitag and responsible for the online community of this German weekly newspaper, Silvia Costeloe, Journalist specialising in social media and online video at the User Generated Content hub in BBC News, Lars K. Jensen, responsible for the implementation of social media at the Danish news site Ekstra Bladed Net and Danny Schechter, notorious News Dissector from the US, tried to pinpoint the online/journalist challenge: How to find a balance between UGC and public responsibility, between cost effectively and being the first.
 
"To be honest, user generated content isn’t always that exciting", Jensen said, "it is about scanning and recognising interesting topics within UGC". Journalists have to recognise the true value of UGC and can't turn a blind eye to it: "The merits of social media is it’s directness and it’s speed."
 
Contrary to popular belief, user UGC is not that cheap, Costeloe commented her experience at the BBC, where they receive texts, videos and pictures from all over the world at a daily basis. "A Journalist still has to do the research, has to verify and justify his decision before publishing it."
 
Unlike the "old media", online journalism gives you the chance to do the whole process bottom up, said Danny Schechter: To build your journalism on what the user/your audience is moved by and feel and take it from there. "New journalism is about building audiences", Schechter continued at end, interrupting his final plea with a commercial break for his new book "The Crime of Our Time".
 
What I take from it is, that we are spoilt journalists at public broadcasters without commercial breaks that need to rethink the format of our news in a pluralistic media landscape. We are not the oracles anymore, but we will always be heard - in some way or another.