After the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh, said that printed newspapers should recieve financial aid (while online news sites shouldn't) there has been some negative reactions.
Preben Sepstrup, an external lecturer at the Department of Information and Media Studies at the University of Aarhus, is a co author on the midway report regarding the financial media aid in Denmark. In an article on Journalisten.dk he finds the view points of Mr Fogh strange:
The media spokespersons [from the political parties] must have a strange feeling. They have devoted two million Danish Kroner [340,000 US Dollars, 270,000 Euro] to that charting, a following analysis and proposals for new ways to arrange the media aid. They should just have asked Anders Fogh. He had the solution.
Founder of Jubii (a Danish search engine and web portal), Martin Thorborg, has criticized Mr Fogh in his podcast, saying that the print media is dying and this only extends the pain. He also underlines the fact that online media has expenses as well, even though the Danish Prime Minister doesn't appear to believe so.
Also Christian Kierkegaard, director at The Association of the Danish Specialized Press, doesn't understand Mr Fogh's timing:
First of all, it's an unfortunate statement as long as there is still an unravelling going on (the result of that will be made public in September). The most natural thing to do is to wait until the foundation has been established. The Prime Minister says that only printed media are capable of delivering news which the online media then sponges off. If you continue the media aid as it is now, you freeze development. If the net media are to be content provideres for the future and create unassisted content they need equal financial terms. It's not a forward thinking statement the Prime Minister delivers.
The entire article with the interview with Mr Kierkegaard can be read at MediaWatch.
Related posts
News
aid, anders fogh, economy, politics
It would be a tremendous loss if the newspapers vanished, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh told Danish journalism periodical Journalisten (The Journalist).
Therefore he wants to make sure that the Danish newspapers get financial support to secure their survival.
The same, however, doesn't apply to online newspapers. Commercial online news outlets are, according to the article in Journalisten, "left to themselves".
"We know from experience that the printed newspapers deliver most of the news for the electronic media and therefore it would be a colossal loss i the entire media picture if printed media are being forced out of the market by electronic media.
I believe that can substantiate that we for the time being have some direct and indirect aid schemes when it comes to printed media," Anders Fogh told the periodical Journalisten.
A growing number of online media sites feel it's unfair that they don'et get aid. Do they have a point in that?
»No, I actually believe they can do remarkably well online, where they enjoy a free distribution. You can, to some extend, say that the purely net based services don't have huge costs in distribution compared to the printed papers. That is exactly my point. If you have to secure fair competition you don't necessarily need the same aid schemes for the press," the Prime Minister said.
This will, from what I can make of the article, also result in that other online news/magazine sites, that don't necessarily have backing by a newspaper, won't recieve any financial aid.
Related posts
News
aid, economy, News, politics
»Something is rotten in the state of Denmark«, a man once wrote. Indeed, one or two things actually are rotten here in Denmark, but when it comes to journalism we like to think that we all in all do a pretty good job.
But of course we make errors sometimes, as everyone else does sooner or later. This site is about Danish journalism, both when it's really good and when it's…not so good.
Here we will try to provide you with insight into the field of journalism in Denmark and let you eyeball some of the tendencies, especially regarding new media — online journalism.
We look forward to be writing to you and talking with you.
Read more about us at the About page.
All the best,
The Danish Journalism Team
Related posts
About
about danish journalism