Open Password – Monday, September 6, 2021
#970
Austria Press Agency – Corona – Austrian daily newspapers – Clemens Pig – Karin Thiller – News platform – Login alliance – AI support – Diversity – Fact Checking Network – Verification – Johannes Bruckenberger – Reuters – AP – Agency journalism – Polarized public – Joseph Tuvora – Austrian correspondence – kk Telegraphen Korrespondenz Büro – Official News Office – German News Office – Reuters – AP – Fact Check – Public Service – APA-OTS – APA-DeFacto – APA-Comm – APA-PictureDesk – Gentics Software – KEYSTONE-SDA-ATS – OTS Original Text Service – Austria video platform
I.+ II.
Cover stories
The APA in its anniversary year: Corona as a “start button for digitalization”
Central infrastructure service in the information sector
III. – VI.
Outside the box: Recommendations of the week
Vaccine nationalism and globalization
European Corona crisis policy: Good grades, but not yet won
A new structural change in the public?
Our lives depend on the sea, the future of the sea depends on us
Planet Ozan:
Austria Press Agency (1)
The APA in its anniversary year:
Corona as a “start button for digitalization”
“True and unbiased information”
is more important than ever
Clemens Pig, managing director
(APA) The APA – Austria Press Agency is celebrating its 75th anniversary. On September 1, 1946, it was founded as a cooperative owned by Austrian daily newspapers on the initiative of the news agencies Reuters and AP. As was the case back then, the value system of reliability, speed, balance as well as transparency and independence will be upheld in the anniversary year. A digital strategy should show the way into the future.
Hardly any other event since the APA was founded has had as great an impact on its fortunes as the corona pandemic. Clemens Pig, managing director of the APA, sees it as a “jump button” for digitalization: “As an editorial and technological infrastructure company, the APA has a very specific role to play in this long-lasting exceptional situation: as an innovation and digital hub for the media and Communications industry in Austria; and as a basic provider of the media with ‘true and unbiased news. We have proven that the APA is an essential tool of Austrian democracy from a journalistic perspective and an indispensable media tool from a business perspective.»
Even if the APA is in principle well positioned as a «Swiss knife in media digitalization», it needs to develop further with a digital strategy with a focus on the digital workplace, digital platforms and digital business in order to be able to cope well with the significantly changing media usage. We currently want to better understand how users use media in the digital space. “The issue of data can be a key lever for this,” says Pig.
They also want to bring everyone under 30 in the APA together with managers in order to listen and understand the needs of young media users. Managing director Karin Thiller sees her own facility as a “chic woman in her early forties – self-confident and aware of her strengths, but at the same time quite willing to change”.
We are currently working on a modern news platform for the professional communications market that includes all APA content and displays it in a mobile-optimized manner. In addition, the news agency is developing a log-in alliance together with Austria’s media, which will make it possible to use content with a user ID across media.
The digital strategy also deals with your own daily work. “Many work steps that are currently still manual will be AI-supported or (partially ) automated in the foreseeable future. These topics will be with us for a long time. Luckily, we are marathon runners at the agency,” says Pig. Another topic remains diversity in the company, “in order to reflect the diversity of society,” said Thiller.
The fact that the APA, as one of only around 20 independent news agencies worldwide, is seen as an “independent lighthouse” is more important than ever. «In overheated communications markets, where there are so many platforms, opinions and polarization, the need for an independent news agency is increasing,» says Pig, pointing to editorial innovations such as the APA’s verification department, which was recently certified by the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN).
“Correct, credible and trustworthy information has been our core business and the DNA of our journalistic work since it was founded in 1946,” explained APA editor-in-chief Johannes Bruckenberger on the occasion of the anniversary. «‘True and unbiased news’ was the goal that our founding supporters Reuters and AP gave us. In the age of disinformation, this task is more important than ever.»
The answer to disinformation and partiality can only be: «Keep your distance, don’t allow yourself to be taken over. Classify fact-based research impartially – check, re-check, double-check. Separate the essential from the non-essential. Don’t give in to insubordinate interventions, but be transparent and fearless with your own false ones Avoid judgments and mistakes.» Agency journalism requires particular accuracy, speed, clarity and objectivity.
«Since the Enlightenment, it has been the task of journalism to critically accompany the rulers, the powerful and those in power and to report on events, conditions and conditions in politics. This includes successes and sensible solutions as well as errors in the system, injustices or corruption. Journalism with «Respect for political office, but critical distance. News agencies have been among the key companies in the global communications system since the 19th century,» said Bruckenberger. Where they can act independently of the state, they ensure the “free flow of information”. Liberal democracy needs independent media more than ever – as a counterweight to disinformation and the last social anchor for a polarized public. A free press needs independent news outlets.»
Austria Press Agency (2)
Central infrastructure service
in the information sector
Managing Director Karin Thiller
(APA) The APA – Austria Press Agency was founded 75 years ago: The news agency began operations on September 1, 1946. The very first report was issued in the economic department. Back then, news was distributed to the country’s media via endless strips of the so-called Hell-Schreiber, today APA news is distributed in «real time» via computers and smartphones.
The APA became the country’s leading electronic information provider. The history of the APA “forerunners” began, of course, in the monarchy. In 1849, Joseph Tuvora founded the «Österreichische Correspondenz», the first news agency in Austria, which, as a private company, was largely under state influence. In 1859 the “Österreichische Correspondenz” was converted into the “kk Telegraphen Korrespondenz Büro”. This construct was to exist until 1922. The agency, like its successor company “Amtliche Nachrichtenstelle” (ANA), was under state management. Between 1938 and 1945, the ANA was transformed into the «Vienna branch» of the Berlin-based «Deutsche Nachrichten Büro» and misused for Nazi propaganda purposes.
In 1946, on the initiative of the Allies, the Austria Press Agency was founded as a private cooperative owned by the daily newspapers. At that time, the APA only became independent due to “external pressure,” namely from the Allies together with the news agencies Reuters and AP. The Austrian government was against an independent news agency. Today, the APA is one of only around 20 to 25 independent news agencies worldwide; the majority of the rest are under state control.
On September 1, 1946, the APA began work in the Vienna Stock Exchange building. At the beginning, the agency had a foreign, a domestic, a business and a sports editorial department. Other topics were initially “addressed”. The culture department was founded in 1957, and there has been a separate chronicle department since 1983. The picture department was founded in 1985, and the graphics department saw the light of day as a separate department in 1994.
From 1970 to 2005, the APA was housed in the International Press Center at Gunoldstrasse 14 in Vienna-Döbling. In August 2005 the company moved to one of the most modern and largest newsrooms in continental Europe at the Naschmarkt in Vienna-Mariahilf. In the Corona year 2020, the APA transferred many of its services to digital. Due to the increase in fake news, the fact checking area has been strengthened.
While in the early days the daily volume was around 100 to 150 reports, 75 years later around 500 reports, more than 1,000 photos as well as numerous videos and infographics on topics from Austria and the world are produced every day. With its news and multimedia offerings, the APA provides daily newspapers, radio and television, but also online services and magazines as well as political organizations and commercial companies with the raw material for their daily work. It thus provides a central infrastructure service in the information sector for Austrian society. The APA fulfills this task according to the principles of reliability, speed and balance and therefore has the function of a «public service» because it aims to report reliably, objectively, comprehensively and promptly. A “public task” is carried out on a private behalf.
The entire APA Group now consists not only of more than 500 permanent employees, but also of several successful subsidiaries: APA-OTS and APA-DeFacto have been appearing on the market together as APA-Comm since 2019. There are also the subsidiaries APA-IT, IT supporter of the Austrian news agency, as well as numerous other (media) companies, the photo agency APA-PictureDesk and the internationally successful CMS and portal manufacturer Gentics Software. There is also a 30 percent stake in the Swiss news agency KEYSTONE-SDA-ATS AG, making the APA the largest shareholder.
In addition to its work in news journalism, the APA acts as a provider of databases – from the APA basic service to international news agencies, newspapers and magazines from Austria, Germany and Switzerland to the most important ORF news programs as well as relevant web and social media content – and is making it one of the largest media monitoring companies in the country. With the OTS original text service, as the largest domestic distributor of multimedia press releases, the APA also offers a platform for public discourse. In 2017, the Austria Video Platform (AVP), operated by the APA, launched as a professional hub for the exchange of news videos from domestic media companies. Innovative technical services are also offered.
The cooperative members and owners are the Austrian daily newspapers «Kurier», «Kleine Zeitung», «Österreich», «Oberösterreichische Nachrichten», «Salzburger Nachrichten», «Der Standard», «Tiroler Tageszeitung», «Die Presse», «Vorarlberger Nachrichten» , “Neues Volksblatt”, “Neue Vorarlberger Tageszeitung”, “Wiener Zeitung” and the ORF. Through the cooperative principle, the APA contributes to media diversity in Austria. The APA generated sales of 67.81 million euros in 2020. The consolidated result (EGT) was 3.72 million euros.
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Outside the box:
Recommendations of the week
Vaccine nationalism and globalization
Vaccine nationalism: contested relationships between COVID-19 and globalization, by Yanqiu Rachel Zhou , Published online: 10 Aug 2021, in: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2021.1963202
Abstract: This article offers a review of the emerging literature on ‘vaccine nationalism’ – the act of gaining preferential access to newly developed vaccines by individual countries – in the context of COVID-19, paying close attention to the complex relationships between the global public health crisis and globalization. The coexistence of nationalist and globalist approaches to COVID-19 vaccines suggests simultaneous and contentious processes of globalization and deglobalization; the growing political and economic divide in the world; the lack of (or lag in) our consciousness of global interconnectedness, especially in non-economic spheres; and various structural barriers to global collaboration when facing a common threat to humanity’s future. Although these tensions – not necessarily novel – are unlikely to end globalization given the extant intertwining of global economic networks, they have been sharpened and intensified during the pandemic and, thus, constitute a pivotal – or make-or-break – moment for us to critically imagine a post-pandemic world
European Corona crisis policy:
Good grades, but not won yet
Europe’s COVID-19 Crisis Response: A Race Well Run, But Not Yet Won. By Alfred Kammer , Nathaniel Arnold , in: https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2021/number/4/article/europe-s-covid-19-crisis-response-a-race-well-run -but-not-yet-won.html
Conclusion. While Europe’s response to the pandemic has been laudable, there remains more to be done in order to prevent economic scarring and ensure a robust recovery. The early part of the recovery that we are entering now is a critical period. Greater focus is needed on efforts to facilitate the reallocation of labor and capital from declining firms and sectors to new and expanding ones as the recovery gets underway. EU recovery funds can complement such measures with more medium-term support for investments to support an economic transformation and accelerate the green and digital transitions. Furthermore, EU funds can help mitigate the growth impact over the next few years of the gradual, but steady, fiscal adjustments that will be needed in high-debt countries. Finally, the EU fiscal rules should be reformed while the general escape clause is in place, to ensure that they are fit for purpose in the post-pandemic world.
A new structural change in the public sphere?
A new structural change in the public sphere? – Special volume Leviathan 37 | 2021, published by Dr. Martin Seeliger , Dr. Sebastian Sevignani , Nomos 2021
The public is important for democracy, and it is changing. Its current development takes place in the area of tension between three sequences of institutional change – globalization, commodification and the digitalization of the social. These shed light on the volume’s contributions in discussion with Jürgen Habermas’ public theory, who presents his own thoughts on renewed structural change in the public sphere. The book is aimed at a broad interdisciplinary audience from the social and cultural sciences who are interested in living and functioning publics and who would like to use well-founded contemporary diagnoses to gain an overview of current changes and the associated opportunities and challenges for the legitimacy and effectiveness of democracy.
Planet Ocean: Our lives depend on the sea,
the future of the seas depends on us
Planet Ocean – Our lives depend on the sea, the future of the seas depends on us, by Mariasole Bianco, Folio Verlag, ISBN 978-3-85256-841-6
A hymn to the beauty and fragility of the seas, a call to protect the cradle of our lives. Seas and oceans cover 71% of our “blue planet”. They regulate the climate, produce 50% of oxygen, and provide food and work for billions of people. 80% of all living things live in the water: turtles and sharks, seagrass meadows and corals, lanternfish and yeti crabs in lightless depths. But we know little about the underwater kingdom; Only about 5% of the ocean depths with their mountain ranges, trenches and volcanoes have been surveyed, and the full diversity of living creatures has been little researched. As a marine biologist, Mariasole Bianco makes the connections visible and describes the oceans as stabilizers of our ecosystem and as guarantors of biodiversity and she urgently warns against overfishing, destruction of mangrove forests or plastic waste.
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