Playing on thin or thick ice?

By Fashionoffice's publisher Karin Sawetz

Two days ago, US Americans inaugurated their new president; in four days, the Austrians will swear their new president into the responsibility to work for the country’s people. So far, the job description of both is the same. Only, such as everybody knows, that's not easy to change the behavior from one day or during several months. But their behavior was even the reason why these two presidents had received the votes. 

fig.: The image was captured yesterday on the frozen lake Neusiedl nearby Vienna.

After the election isn't before the election, political fight-speeches shouldn't replace proper political discourses – the last mentioned duty is what for the people are paying the presidents and their colleagues (ministers, counselors,...). And they are paying these high salaries despite many of the countries' citizens (US and Austria) are so poor that they have only the minimum of medical care - which means for example in Austria that patients are lying in their beds quasi in the public in the corridors of hospitals or have to wait several months for a medical appointment when arranged via insurance. The insurance isn't free of costs in Austria. It's so expensive that some small entrepreneurs can't afford the monthly outgoings so that they aren't insured. And the small entrepreneur scene has grown during the last years which is on the one hand a good sign as the economy receives new impulses. But realistically it has to be mentioned that many became company owners because they had lost their jobs or the 'employee contract' and deliver the services now under a new contract: the 'work contract'. In journalism, this way of working is common since many years. In Austria, only few journalists are employed. The most deliver their reports to publishers who pay them after a mix consisting of the outlays for the making of (research of a theme, production of videos, photos, interviews, inclusively travel expenses, hotel recipes, styling of the presenter,...), remuneration of the creative work (composing the report, writing the text, selecting images, cutting one or more videos, choosing underlying music,...), and fees for the usage of the editorial work (with all media like text, sound like music or spoken text, images, video) by the publisher (usage is measured after the official data of circulation - either number of produced copies or number of readers, viewers, users). Even when these calculations sound like classical profit-orientated business activities, journalism should never be profit-orientated (which doesn't exclude that a journalist has to work revenue-orientated). It's literally a 'balancing act' - and all that played on ice which should become after the will of some politicians thin and thinner. The general accusation that all media workers break the law by telling the untruth isn't fair. But how life plays; I think these prejudices have already thickened the ice under the feet of journalists who are truth-hunters. Perhaps these accusations have initiated the long awaited positive change in media!