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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
full integration. Most of the interviewees describe crossmedia work as the future of
journalism and they are convinced that they will increasingly work for diverse media
types. At the same time these statements show that so far in Germany most of the
newsrooms have not fully introduced a crossmedia strategy.
This impression was confirmed by the observation and interviews. Within the German
TV stations ARD and N-TV, for example, TV and online departments cooperate but do
not work crossmedially. “We cross-reference our products and we show 100 seconds
news-spots online, which are short versions of the Tagesschau.” (J10, public TV) In
contrast, the private TV channel RTL strives for full integration of TV and online. The
station’s own journalism school focuses on teaching crossmedia techniques (J8,
private TV), stressing the importance of crossmedia as a future-oriented strategy.
Young journalists have to be able to work for TV and online at the same time.
With regard to radio, editorial offices often provide information for the website since
there is no separate team responsible only for online news. Generating news for the
internet is therefore part of radio journalists’ daily work. At private radio RPR1, for
instance, information is simply copied from the news system onto the internet. The
public WDR2 radio “recycles” its news as podcasts. Additionally, more detailed
information is provided online.
There is a close collaboration between newspaper and online departments, but in most
cases journalists still work in two different newsrooms (e.g. national: Spiegel, Die Zeit,
SZ, taz and regional: WN). The regional newspaper WN, however, is an example of
more advanced crossmedia cooperation. A print journalist attends an event and
collects not only information but also video material. Back at the editorial office he or
she provides both the newspaper as well as the website with news and cuts the video
for the newspapers’ website. This is not as easy as it may sound. A journalist
emphasizes the challenge of editing information for different kinds of media. Vocal and
TV coaching are a necessary condition for successful crossmedia news production.
(J7, regional newspaper) A colleague also stresses the difficulty between different
media-specific routines and cultures. This problem can be described as a consequence
of diverging mindsets: “For an online journalist information is important only for about
one hour. Decisions in print media, however, are made for a long period of time. To
merge these ideals and to think in both dimensions is a lot more difficult than one might
think.” (J6, regional newspaper) Furthermore, there is a lot of debate as to how much
print material one can (re-)use for the media’s website. Providing too much material
online could have a negative impact on the newspaper’s circulation. (J4, national
newspaper)
One can conclude that in Germany there is a lot of cooperation between the different
editorial sections. However, this development has not resulted in a convergence like in
the deregulated U.S. media market where one finds multimedia organizations that
provide print, TV, radio and online media with news.
The current changes in the structure of journalistic organizations characterized by the
keywords newsdesk, newsroom and crossmedia also bring about a change in the
journalistic role conception. On the one hand, increasing crossmedia working
procedures entail that one journalist works as an all-rounder contributing for example to
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