The Impact of Media Concentration on Professional ... - OSCE

<strong>The</strong> Norwegian media house ORKLA issued “Publishing Principles”that guarantee for the editorial independence <strong>of</strong> theirnewspapers. Is there a similar kind <strong>of</strong> guideline in your company?Fig. 13Yes 67No 330 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100Orkla or similar principles are in fashion both with journalistsand their employers never mind their political orientation. <strong>The</strong>latest German media company to introduce such rules was theconservative Hamburg/Berlin based Springer group.German print media’s credibility has long suffered fromthe erroneous perception <strong>of</strong> being too close for comfort toeither political parties or industrial interest groups. <strong>The</strong> reasonfor such a perception can be found in history. Early print mediain Germany were “children” <strong>of</strong> political and/or ideologicalareas <strong>of</strong> society.Credibility could be the most important card to play forpublishers in their fight for winning over a population whichseems, however, to be generally frustrated with German massmedia. A survey conducted in 1990 showed that 51 per cent <strong>of</strong>Germans would miss television. Ten years later this number haddropped by 7 points to only 44 per cent. Over the same period<strong>of</strong> time the appreciation rate <strong>of</strong> daily newspapers dropped from63 to 52 per cent. 76“Our only chance to survive in the long run is to push forquality and credibility” said one German publisher contactedfor this survey.Journalists, on the other hand understand the main purpose<strong>of</strong> such internal statutes as to assist them in keeping theirbearings while their pr<strong>of</strong>essional world is undergoing dramaticstructural changes.108 THE IMPACT OF MEDIA CONCENTRATION ON PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM