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

Do you think ownership and management <strong>of</strong> your paperconsider the writing staff <strong>of</strong> the company more as an assetor rather as less important? Fig. 19Asset 61Less important 390 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100If the newspaper is nothing but the packaging <strong>of</strong> the real product,i.e. the journalistic content, journalists should be thought<strong>of</strong> as the most important asset <strong>of</strong> their company.This is, as Fig. 19 shows, still the case in the majority <strong>of</strong>cases. Sixty-one per cent <strong>of</strong> the participants in this survey dobelieve to be held in high esteem by their employers. More thanone-third, however, have serious doubts about their position.“I <strong>of</strong>ten feel if they could get away with producing an alladvertisingpublication they’d be happier. <strong>The</strong>y don’t understandwhat newspaper people are or do, and therefore don’tunderstand why we can’t be run like they would run a callcentreor something”.This particularly frank statement coming from the UnitedKingdom was one <strong>of</strong> the saddest answers received during thissurvey.It demonstrates clearly what kind <strong>of</strong> impact economicrecession followed by concentration is having on pr<strong>of</strong>essionaljournalism.GENERAL SURVEY RESULTS 89