Latest posts
Money makes the values go around 4
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What’s about the planned EU-pilot-project to support so called Investigative Journalism, I asked the EU-Commission when I came back in January to Brussels: “The project was cancelled late last year”, I was told by the European Comm...
Money makes the values go around 3
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Death before birth? No EU-money for investigative journalism? Is this the fate of the “Pilot Project on Investigative Journalism (PPIJ)“,? It should start 2011 - officially spoken: on initiative of the European Parliament. But the pro...
Money makes the values go around 2
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Funny experience, I made over the last days of ’investigative research‘ on a new EU-budgetline to support ’investigative research’. Interesting topics: there is a running EU call to choose a “Assistant ServicesR...
Money makes the values go around 1
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Fascinating developments in the field of journalism and their ‘stakeholders’ in the pipeline. There seems to be a new EU-2011-budgetline - for investigative journalism. This, and the publication of a call for tender with a lot of tend...
Brussels Doublespeak – Lesson 1
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Don’t trust their words – that’s lesson 1, if you want to understand, what really happens in the Brussel bubble. It seems, that George Orwells fiction “1984″ becomes step by step reality. Doublespeak is used – not...
Know- or No-Day?
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Is there enough transparency for the citizen or even the ‘decision-maker’, to know and understand, what happens in politics, companies or administrations? No. “Transparency” is a buzz-word – at least for many politici...
GIJC 2011 – let’s communicate
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Think political, not formal. Journalists and their readers should come closer to the issues of power. In the ongoing media-crisis the ‘window of opportunity’ is still open, to re-invent media and the public-sphere - for instance by so...
Self-Devaluation of media
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It’s more and more dangerous publishing articles, comments and even cartoons in a paper or in the web. The famous western value ‘freedom of speech’ seems to go down gradually in value – in mother-countries of democracy and...
Wanted: Casino-Watchdogs
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There are not enough lobbyists in Brussels. That’s the message of an appeal of a lot of members of the European Parliament of several political groups. Interesting – this cry for help and support in front of the powerful financial-market...
The Merkelized Europe
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Are we living in a ‘merkelized’ Europe - wait and see nothing? Thats seems to be the mood on the eve of the June-summit. It will last only one day. Does this mean, the EU-heads of state even gave up the idea, to talk profoundly about the...
Declaration of insolvency
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The letter of the President of the French Republic and the Federal Chancellor of Germany to “His Excellency José Manuel Barroso President of the European Commission” is a declaration of insolvency – and part of the ongoing blam...
Good bye, free Internet?
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There are at least two ‘hidden’-topics on the European agenda of vested interests, where real in depth reporting is missing or reporting is – even worse – misleading the public. First, the ongoing crisis on the financial mark...
Euro-politicians out of control
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Hard times. Not only in policy and economy. Many citizens ask in these days of inflation on the horizon: how to organize my professional and private life? Is my little money in the Bank (or even in the public owned “Sparkasse”) still sa...
Sta op en wandel
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“Sta op en wandel!”, said Ides Debruyne in the preface of the book: “Jonge Honden – Is er nog toekomst voor de journalistiek?”(edited by Geert Zagers for the Fonds Pascal Decroos). How to survive as a freelance journali...
Principle of Hope
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The on and on-going crisises on the financial markets and the debt-crisis of the public entities demonstrates it again: there is no ‘leadership’ in the European Union, it’s ‘principle of hope’ which governs. And, but not...
Let’s take our money back
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It looks, that we will get sooner or later a rather crude “hair-cut” of the value of our money – in short: an inflation of 20, 30, 40… %; everybody fears somthing like this, but there is no real public debate. Why? Politician...
Writing is resistance
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Something I learned already at day one of the “Global Investigative Journalism Conference” (GIJC 2010) in Geneva: in Brussels we have the EU-power-elite, who decides who’s in and out the bubble. Talking about classes – in Jour...
Too many Profiteers
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Who pays the bill of the ongoing and still deepening depth-crisis of the United States, Europe, Japan and a lot of other states? Definitely not the big players on the financial markets. They are “system-relevant”. Their politicians and states gua...
Pro-missing Journalism
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Does media in Europa fill its tasks to inform about the real things and as watchdog criticizing bad and non-policy. In short: to offer orientation for their readers and listeners in a world, which citizens perceive as more and more complicated a...
EUROpean insolvency – islands for auction
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Wir warnen auf “Europa-Transparent” und im “EUobserver-Blog” schon seit Monaten vor der stillschweigenden Vorbereitung einer Art “Stunde Null” für Staaten und Währungen. Und siehe da: die Krise Griechenlands bri...
