Transition to New Media The Austrian experience

Who, what and where Nadja Igler Online journalist since 2000, started with layout- and photo-editing, writing since 2002 ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Company) national broadcaster and biggest news-website in Austria TV, radio and online, split on three locations all over Vienna

What are we talking about Online Journalism: Different way of publishing and distribution Different way of storytelling (links) More reader-interaction possible/necessary Always on, no deadlines (permanently evolving stories) „Quick and dirty“? (copy & paste)

Situation in Austria Survey 2009: Half of the online journalists were freelancers, mainly „false“ freelancers, working in shifts with plans The other half did not work under the collective agreement for newspaper journalists, but agreements like PR and marketing or IT-workers (only three out of about 130 people had contracts as Journalists)

Situation in Austria Just a few were allowed to write own articles, mainly used content from news agencys (still main source, as in newspapers) Wanted to do more, often not allowed („not worth it“) Not journalists by contract (only few were/are granted journalist‘s rights by law like more holiday and longer cancelation period)

How could that happen? In 1999 the collective agreement for newspaper journalists was renewed to include online journalists. Publishers found a way to circumvent it, founded subsidaries with cheaper collective agreements. Kollektivvertragsflucht („Escape of the collective agreement“)

Whats happening now? For a long time nobody cared enough to react, 2006 the online journalists started to act Since 2009 a new collective agreement is being negotiated to get more journalists covered by it (driven by the Onliners), publishers tried to put pressure on the journalists, withdraw from the agreement big protests

Biggest protest since years, whole editorial departments joined, print and online showed solidarity (in july already protests for the collective agreement PR and marketing Negotiations restarted (withdraw from withdraw of the collective agreement) Paradigm-Shift: Online first.

The publishers are the enemy Publishers tried to blame the „old“ journalists (with good contracts) and the union, that they were not quick enough with the collective agreement and want to defend they rights (like more holiday, although this is covered by law) so the young journalists still have to wait for more money (discussion an the websites of the newspapers, publishers got blamed, eg derstandard.) Union replied that it‘s the publishers fault, that the online journalists don‘t have contracts as journalists. Online journalists wrote open letter, that they don‘t wanna be used, debate got public and publicity. The publishers can change the situation anytime (!), but they don‘t want to pay more money ….

Big Media Companies ORF: TV, radio, online – all seperated. TV is big within the Company, then comes Radio, then Online – the same in other Media Outlet, where Online comes second (Slowly changing. Integrated Newsroom debated). (Big) Fights about who gets to say whats happening now. Online journalists (me, work council) trying to negotiate a collective agreement for them too (like in print). Standard: Second big News Website, now moving into a new office -> print and online still seperated, to avoid people, earning differently but doing the same, sitting next to each other

Big Media Companies Kurier: They want to make a integrated newsroom (and lay of people!), first success of crosspublishing (futurezone), but more like using the same content on two different media plattforms -> who would do that with Radio and TV? (editor-to-go) Heute: planing big investements in Online, but not (always) real journalism („Mind the advertisers need“ in their contracts) / Krone

In recent years some Journalists formed new outlets like Zib21, Neuwal, Paroli, Dossier. Paroli and Dossier formed as a new way of publishing news -> not making money, trying to gain interest and to get known (the editors and journalists). Strong competition from free newspapers („heute“), which make their „ journalists“ to mind the needs of the advertisers

Future Each year in Austria more journalists than needed finish school and universities -> young and hungry, they know how to make text, picture, audio and video (but maybe not always with journalistic ethics) – more versatile and cheaper One-man-shows can work, but only if you (want to) do a lot of Marketing-Cooperations

Wanna get old? Leave! After about 15 years of editing and publishing news online people in my company are tired. They have kids, a house, a social life -> Journalism has never been an easy or quiet job, but working for an online newssite is like working for a news agency, even quicker. Many of my collegues had a burnout

Conclusion Getting online is easy, staying there tough Lot of work, for many hours, not well paid Fun, quick, interactive work – but for how long do you wanna take it? Work on sunday night shifts when you have kids? Your work/“content“/story is not appreciated – by the publisher -> has to change.

Antagonism (Source: When online-journalist-meets cyber-salesman) The Ideal The RealityThe Future?

There is no shortcut, …there is no free lunch. For publishers and journalists.