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When I arrived in the UK, coming from Germany, I was profoundly shocked at the state of the UK media. I still don't think the Guardian or Times are good newspapers, certainly nowhere near the league that the Frankfurter Allgemeine or Süddeutsche Zeitung still play in.
German media has lost a lot of quality (e.g., through introduction of private TV in the 80s) in recent decades compared to what it used to be (and there have always been crap papers like Bild-Zeitung (the German Sun/Mail) or Die Welt there, too, but even the Axel Springer-Verlag is better than the Murdoch empire), but it is still considerably superior, with much better journalistic ethics and public service ethos generally than in the UK. There are well-edited local and regional newspapers that play an important role in forming identities. The market is also still a lot less concentrated than over here. Obviously, it is being strongly affected by the Internet, too, so it's anyone's guess what that will eventually cause.
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Oliver Schick
@Gustav
I can remember the joy of arriving in the UK having come from NZ where the media sector reflected the country's small population. Newspapers in London (Guardian in particular) was a real treat.
Now I feel I'm spoilt for choice and the idea of having one media outlet monopolising my attention seems rather bizarre. This might mean reading articles on Obama's foreign policy, Steven Levy on the encrpytion debate or a look at what Britain might be like post Brexit. The internet has made it much easier to access a kaleidoscope of opinions. There is an argument to be made for there being more opinions that support people's biases but the Sun and the Mail did a pretty good job of that in the past.
Issue of who pays for all this is still to be answered although hoping in the future better journalists will prevail and won't need a masthead above their name to make a leaving. The much talked about micropayments, patronage and content partnerships hopefully will see everyone get paid.