Edition 3-4/2023, Essay

Fixers in a war zone Foreign media’s invisible producers

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By Maryna Grytsai | Fixers are rarely mentioned as members of journalistic teams, yet their contribution to foreign and specifically war reporting is enormous. The current war in Ukraine is no exception. Fixers act as guides for foreign correspondents, helping them to navigate a foreign country, language, and culture. At the same time, they often receive the least protection – as demonstrated recently by the death of the Ukrainian journalist and fixer Bohdan Bitik, who was working together with a correspondent from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in Kherson. This case, and others like it, give rise to plenty of questions: Under what conditions do fixers work and what are the rules for their work? What does their role include and (how) are their rights protected?

Debate, Edition 3-4/2023

All twittered out What @ichbinsophiescholl tells us about platform criticism in journalism

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By Nora Hespers | Journalists and media houses use a wide range of social media platforms to reach their audience. Yet this use is rarely subject to critical examination. The downfall of Twitter, now X, is the ideal opportunity to take a critical look at the structures and economic conditions behind these networks. But still there is no great debate – just as there wasn’t in the case of the Instagram project @ichbinsophiescholl. Does journalism lack expertise in social media?

Edition 3-4/2023, Review

The top ten of book journalism Recommendations for books by journalists

By Fritz Hausjell and Wolfgang R. Langenbucher | The idea of selecting and presenting the best books written by journalists is a project of the Institute for Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Vienna, co-founded by Hannes Haas (1957-2014) and compiled by Wolfgang R. Langenbucher and Fritz Hausjell. The project published its first recommendation list in 2002 in the quarterly journal Message, founded by Michael Haller. After the journal’s discontinuation, the selections were doc- umented in the magazine Der österreichische Journalist [The Austrian Journalist] starting in 2015. In 2020 and 2021 the publication of the recommendation list had to be temporarily suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It found its new home, Journalism Research, in 2022.

Edition 3-4/2023, Review

Frank Bräutigam (2023): Recht richtig formulieren. Ein Handbuch mit Beispielen aus der journalistischen Praxis. [How to Correctly Phrase Legal Matters. A Manual with Examples from Journalistic Practice] Tobias Gostomzyk; Uwe Jürgens (eds.) (2023): Böhmermann, Künast, Rezo. Medien- und Internetrecht in 20 Fällen. [Twenty Cases from Media and Internet Law]

Reviewed by Tanjev Schultz | Almost every relevant topic has a legal side to it, and many public debates concern issues that are fundamentally legal matters. A journalist cannot be an expert on everything, but a newsroom that doesn’t have a single staff member with basic legal knowledge – that is plain negligence. Journalists should not be daunted by legalese. Contrary to widespread preconceived notions, many rulings, especially those issued by the German Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, are quite a smooth and compelling read. In addition, there are textbooks that are accessible for people outside the legal profession, too. Here are two books that fall into this category: A new handbook by ARD journalist Frank Bräutigam on how to correctly write about legal topics, and the volume Böhmermann, Künast, Rezo, published by Dortmund-based media law professor Tobias Gostomzyk and Uwe Jürgens, legal adviser to Der Spiegel.

Edition 3-4/2023, Review

Alexis von Mirbach (2023): Medienträume. Ein Bürgerbuch zur Zukunft des Journalismus. [Media Dreams. A Citizen’s Handbook on the Future of Journalism.]

Reviewed by Gabriele Hooffacker | What’s on citizens’ minds when they think about media and journalism? What are they critical of? How do they define good journalism, and what do they consider necessary conditions for quality journalism? The answers to these questions are obviously essential for the democratic functioning of the media and for democracy itself.

Edition 3-4/2023, Review

Miriam Grabenheinrich (2023): Journalismus und Diversity. Umgang mit kultureller Diversität in der journalistischen Praxis und Konsequenzen für die Aus- und Fortbildung. [Journalism and Diversity. Addressing Cultural Diversity in Journalistic Practice and Implications for Education and Training.]

Reviewed by Bärbel Röben | Germany has long been a country of immigration, but in journalistic training, the necessary new key skills of addressing diversity and differentiation are rarely taught. Thanks to Miriam Grabenheinrich’s extensive research, there finally is a theoretically sound, practice-tested concept for raising journalists’ intercultural awareness!

Edition 2/2023, Paper

New game, new rules An investigation into editorial guidelines for dealing with artificial intelligence in the newsroom

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By Kim Björn Becker | The introduction of the language model ChatGPT created plenty of hype around the use of artificial intelligence – not least in journalism. In a profession based around language, the new technology has a wide range of applications. Yet these new possibilities also give rise to questions about how the media deal with artificial intelligence (AI). Some editorial offices have now begun to react to the challenge by publishing their own AI guidelines, aiming to clarify the principles on which their use of algorithms is based. This paper conducts a comparative examination of the documents issued by seven international media in order to gain a fundamental understanding of where the editorial offices see opportunities and the pitfalls they address. The investigation looks at two organizations each from Germany and the USA, as well as one each from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The analysis shows that news agencies tend to have more concise rules, while public service broadcasters are subjected to more comprehensive regulatory standards. Each editorial office sets its own focus: While almost all the media’s guidelines cover human control of AI and questions of transparency, there is less focus on requirements for trustworthy algorithms. The investigation shows that, although media are already looking at fundamental questions thrown up by the new technology, newsrooms still have blind spots when it comes to dealing with AI.

Edition 2/2023, Paper

Fear and balanced The world according to the foxnews.com homepage

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By Fred Vultee | This discourse analysis draws on a database of foxnews.com homepages from 2022-23 to assess the issues, stories and actors that help form the worldview of the Fox audience. The thematic assessment is complemented by a study of text features that address licensing: who speaks and how, and under what conditions? Results address a question that has drawn attention for more than two decades: »What is Fox News?«

Edition 2/2023, Paper

Separating Advertising Business from Journalism How pertinent is Karl Bücher’s 1919 concept for press reform today?

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By Horst Pöttker | The purpose of this article is to raise awareness for fundamental problems of journalistic quality assurance. To do this, we analyzed Karl Bücher’s largely forgotten reform concept of 1919 against the backdrop of current media developments for its sociopolitical relevance, its merits and flaws compared to other concepts of journalistic quality assurance (most of which Bücher himself already mentioned at the time), its applicability to various media, and its political, legal, and economic viability. Our hypothesis is that the most promising and viable approach is to extend the principle of public broadcasting to other media.