Numerous governments have had the issue on their agenda since then, but almost nothing has happened. The current Media Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) has announced an adaptation by the end of the year.
“I would be pleasantly surprised if there was anything serious from the media minister. But I don’t believe it,” says media researcher Andy Kaltenbrunner. Yesterday his media company in Vienna, together with the press club Concordia, the press council, representatives of university institutions and the journalists’ union in the GPA, went public with a ten-point catalogue.
“Frozen Post Horn Tones”
The main criterion for efficient and accurate media promotion is the quality standard of the reports published on all platforms. This includes, for example, membership in the Press Council, compulsory training and further education, effective equality plans for women and the application and recognition of the Journalists Act.
“I know that at first glance these demands sound like frozen post horn tones, but we experience the opposite every day. The current press funding disadvantages everyone who thinks about the future,” says Kaltenbrunner.
Eike-Clemens Kullmann, OÖN editor and chairman of the journalists’ union in the GPA, agrees: “The current press funding is a watering can story that hardly refers to quality.”
The media authority KommAustria currently has annual funds of almost 8.7 million euros at its disposal. Only 1.5 million of these go to promoting quality and securing the future.
In contrast, the “funding” of the media in the form of advertisements from the public sector has increased massively in recent years. In 2020, for example, the federal government placed advertisements worth around 33.5 million euros. The fact that around two-thirds of the advertising revenue went to tabloid media shows that quality and variety hardly played a role. Kaltenbrunner, who has these numbers, speaks of arbitrariness and a lack of transparency. Eike-Clemens Kullmann “does not want to let go” of the cause.
Source: Nachrichten
