Page 118 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

BEYOND BALANCED PLURALISM 107

economic, chance to get their own, possibly non-profit-making,
stations. But only two of these have been licensed, in West Berlin and
Freiburg. Neither has a large market share and they have both had their
problems. On both stations, women are given plenty of airtime; and
there are also programmes produced by women for women audiences.
The fears of political bias on the part of private broadcasting critics
have not been substantiated. The national television and large
commercial radio stations cannot afford to alienate half their audience
by adopting a particular political stance; and in radio, the regulators
have made sure, so far, that local stations with a political message are
limited in number.
The two private Land-wide radio stations in Lower Saxony and
Schleswig-Holstein have tended to imitate the formats of public-service
news broadcasts. Whether they will be able to retain a certain quality in
their information output when, as planned, two new commercial Land
radio stations start broadcasting, remains to be seen. Since the news
programmes are one of the strong points of the public-service channels
and are highly appreciated by the audiences, the private television
channels too have been trying to improve the journalistic quality of their
news output, but they have run into cost problems. Light entertainment
has been their big audience-puller instead.
Most radio and television stations provide hardly any socio-political
background information. News programmes, which are normally very
short, are mainly ‘rip and read’ programmes, relying on news agency
feeds. Outside broadcasts and foreign correspondents are expensive to
maintain, especially for television. On radio, telephone interviews
predominate; and on television, talking heads and innumerable self-
styled experts have replaced well-researched in-house background
material. Topical information programmes emphasize the human
interest touch; and the verbal style is deliberately casual and easy-
going, optimistic, non-confrontational and apolitical. According to a
former SAT 1 news editor:

We want to produce a programme service which clearly shows the
people that everyday life is worth living, and that it is worthwhile
to be active. We want to present the world as it is. [That is]
primarily positive, that is not to say that we keep problems under
cover…but we do not want to send people to bed…with the
feeling that the next day they’ll have to face a vale of tears [sic]. 33