medien - 18.3.2005 - 17.9.2005

Microsoft's Covert Advertising on NDR

About the covert advertising (well, you can't really talk about sneaking anymore) for Microsoft in election coverage, there has already been written about. But it's quite shocking is the NDR's justification for why Microsoft had to be mentioned:

According to a statement by the Linux Association, the NDR argued in court that Infratest Dimap uses copyrighted databases and graphics from Microsoft for the projections.

Well, then they should just switch to free software, because I really can't imagine what copyrighted databases or graphics should be involved in election coverage - after all, only banal pie charts and bar charts are shown. And I certainly hope that the election itself is not sponsored by Microsoft - and that they therefore have some naming rights there. The whole thing is once again absolutely bananas, what the public broadcaster allows itself.

Yep, it works.

And onwards:

Only then did I realize: I couldn't care less. It's been a while now - I couldn't care less what Patalong or the other idiots write there: I know how the game works with them, I've experienced how they steal, influence, and trick, I've overheard that they don't have the guts, I've followed it long enough and written about it for a year. It doesn't matter anymore. SPOn doesn't matter anymore, at least not to me.

SPOn has been out of my feed reader for a long time, only appearing indirectly through other blogs and sometimes through Google News searches. Current information about the day's events is provided by Tagesschau and Netzzeitung. And all the many blogs that I read and that give me the necessary pointers on where I should read next ...

Quality Journalism

It was still correct in the WDR morning magazine, but the Tagesschau is not too stupid to repeat the silly joke again:

We should thank the Strasbourg deputies, we have escaped again on this sunny September day: The EU directive "for protection against optical radiation at the workplace" has been overturned and thus remains, hopefully forever, disappeared in the darkness of the archive cabinets.

Dear journalists: the regulation was primarily about artificial optical stress, not about the sun. It was in no way about covering anyone who carries beer mugs - it was about employers being obliged to actively point out to employees the strain caused by UV radiation and to inform them about it. The hint here: >Bare upper bodies on the construction site, deep décolletés in the beer garden, lifeguards without covering.

is therefore complete nonsense.

One may wonder if such a regulation makes sense - but this silly fuss about something that was not the aim of the regulation is actually only embarrassing and ridiculous. More embarrassing and ridiculous than any EU regulation could ever be ...

on the way to media monoculture

Springer is taking over ProSiebenSat.1 - and will likely soon launch their neoliberal opinion campaign multimedially and then send their trash on all channels. A democracy needs an independent, strong press - but one that does not pursue its own political agenda. Therefore, we can probably say goodnight to another piece of democracy when a corporation like Springer will soon bridge the media gap.

Cleared for takedown

In the Zeit: Open Season, a dossier about the victims of attention-seeking ala Raab and Bild ...

The major problem I see here is not just the Bild newspaper and Raab and similar media garbage - the real problem is the acceptance with which this crap is consumed. After months, you no longer know where you read or heard something - and in doing so, you contribute as a vector to the spread of this nonsense.

When I then imagine the Springer publishing group wanting to get its hands on the Pro7/Sat.1 group and with that, presumably next, Bild newspaper and Raab pulling together on the same rope, I feel sick ...

A democratic society lives, among other things, on the diversity of opinion that must also be reflected in media diversity. But when the media landscape becomes dominated across media by a corporation with a clear political agenda (anyone who doubts that can just look at the coverage of Bild newspaper around the time of the last Hamburg citizenship election - best have a sickness bag ready or it'll hit the keyboard), an important factor for democracy is lost.

And so an ugly alliance forms between business associations and a media culture in which one no longer wants to use the word culture - and it degenerates into incitement against the sick, the unemployed, foreigners and left-wing politicians, which already uncomfortably resembles times one actually thought were over ...

And the rip-off continues

The Internet will become subject to fees! - because a PC is the same as a TV or radio. Probably only in the broken minds of politicians, but unfortunately they decide where things are going. And so the GEZ can freely help themselves in the next area and implement their Gestapo methods.

Online Magazine and Journalistic Honesty

News - Bombenstimmung im WWW - someone is upset here that George Orwell didn't censor the entire internet right away because there are so many bomb-making instructions on the net. If you read the article more closely, you will find a gem like this:

His company, a Hamburg-based internet filter provider, discovered a shocking record during the regular update of their blocking systems.

Well, so an online magazine has done nothing more than give a filter company free advertising and disguise it as a journalistic contribution. And then simply use the link to the filter manufacturer as a source - of course, filter manufacturers are always so neutral in their assessment of the net ...

Since the online magazine has an editorial staff according to the imprint, they probably think they fall under the category "professional journalists". Well, in that case, I would rather take a stack of bad blogs as reading material than such a stealth advertising heap ...

Kasia did a bit of research (15 minutes on Google) on Dr. William Hammesfahr, who is frequently cited in the US press in connection with the Shiavo case and is allegedly a Nobel Prize candidate, and found: Journalism is a joke. Because the good Dr. seems to claim a lot, but has nothing to show for it. Above all, no Nobel Prize nomination - only a letter from a congressman who suggested the Dr. to the Nobel Prize committee for the Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine. Quality journalism of the highest order.

ARD-Anstalten contra jW

young world from 03/18/2005 - ARD institutions against jW - what the ARD broadcasting institutions spend our GEZ fees on. Hmm. If public broadcasters take action against free press, does that then threaten cultural diversity and is that then a quite sufficient reason for a boycott call against the GEZ?