1. I also would rate 8-9 for freedom of press in Germany. As Maximilian and Kristina mentioned we (still) have a large scale of diverse media with different backgrounds. I also think this status quo is challenged by economic pressure. Moreover alarming for me is the current situation as Astrid wrote about the attack on a ZDF camera team in Dresden and the loss of acceptance by fake news declarations of the right wring party Afd (Alternative for Germany). I think journalists are posing challenging times by keeping their reliability. Also, Kristina’s comment on illegal data of journalists held by the police is very alarming. I would like to recommend a highly interesting and inspiring article “Letter to German Press” by the American journalist Jay Rosen:
2. I assume the circumstances for the Ukrainian journalists and the freedom of press in Ukraine as a difficult situation to deal with. To be honest, I don’t know a lot about your media landscape and work conditions (only dangerous half knowledge) and I’m looking very much forward to meet you and get an insight report and experience with it. The same, or even more, for the Republic of Moldova. It is more or less an exception to find news or reports of your country in our newspaper or daily news.
3. I grew up with daily newspaper Sueddeustche Zeitung and weekly Die ZEIT and Spiegel. Also with national public radio like Deutschlandfunk and TV Tagesschau. Nowadays I get my information’s mostly from Sueddeutsche Zeitung (print), national public radio Deutschlandradio and from time to time Tagesschau (daily news) as well as TV documentaries (background) from ARTE.
I think the freedom of press is a very important aspect to develop and keep a civil society.
4. I think the positive aspect of social media is the excess to participation and exchange of everybody to a certain topic without frontiers (social, global…).
To inform myself on local and global political issues I still prefer printed newspaper or broadcasting. For background information, I listen to feature or I like the intensively researched articles like dossiers.
I have the impression that these articles are better researched, are with more and diverse background information’s as well as an article by a skilled writer and journalist is a pleasure to read. Maybe it is the time aspect, which is relevant. Online media give me the impression that first of all the importance is to be fast (or the “fastest”) with news and informations.
Media beyond frontiers 