Prime Minister Fogh's online/offline view causes a stir
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.
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