I am wondering if I am just learning what it is to be a journalist or if am I writing for a wrong newspaper?
I wrote an article about Vienna’s “other foreigners”. Vienna is the city of foreigners. Under “foreigners”, people here understand Turks, Serbs, Croats… What is completely ignored, is that Vienna is one of hubs centres of international organisations. 25 such organisations are based in Vienna. This means between 20,000 and 30,000 foreigners in Vienna who belong to this international community. These people are great for their international touch, for being educated and being experts in their field. This is being recognised through their salaries, their status, their privileges – they don’t pay taxes for instance. They are given a lot. Unfortunately, this community is hermetically closed. Invisible. So I finished my article about them (which I started by saying they are invisible) by saying that this is a pity because they could also give a lot back to Vienna – in just giving it more of the “other” or being more visible. Meaning, making Vienna into a truly international city.
And what did the paper do? Simply cut the ending. So basically, I have an article out there just describing this community. Every high-school kid could have written an article like this.
I complained that not only they took the attitude and the main point out of my article, they cut its ending – it ends too abruptly. The explanation was that my ending was too much of a comment.
My question is: what is the use of journalism if it doesn’t raise questions?
And here a quote of the day:
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt.
Great Quote. Reminds me of “Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, administrate”.
I think we are living in a time where newspapers are so close to the brink of extinction that they are too afraid to be controversial (or be seen as controversial) and that they might damage “stick holder value”, loose advertising etc.
The problem: We are living in a mega-sized world. If we want to do anything today, it has to reach millions, make millions and will cost you millions of thoughts to get it into a shape that will not upset ONE person.
If you use the big media outlets that live on the advertising money of large corporations that want to have a 100% ethical and politically correct image, you have to live with their standards. That’s why you can write it here, but not on print.
I guess to make a change you have to write your own blog, be so persistent in your goals and so high in your quality and in line with your target audience that you create the followers with the desired brain size.
Then, you might be able to create a name for you in that specific topic and be discussed in mainstream press.