Austrian Press Council

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The Association for the Self-Control of the Austrian Press - Austrian Press Council is an institution for the self-control of print media in Austria and was re-established in 2010. The press council is based on the principle of voluntariness and serves to ensure editorial quality, promote responsible journalism and guarantee freedom of the press. An important task is the publication and adaptation of the code of honor for the Austrian press . The old Austrian Press Council existed from 1961 to 2002. In 2009, the journalists' union and the Association of Austrian Newspapers agreed in principle to reinstate a press council. The constituent meeting of the new press council took place in March 2010. The supporting organizations also include the editors-in-chief's association, the Austrian magazine and specialist media association, the association of regional media in Austria and the Concordia press club. The President of the Press Council is currently Thomas Götz, chairman of the editors-in-chief and deputy chairman. Editor-in-chief of the "Kleine Zeitung", his deputy Dieter Henrich, managing director of the Association of Regional Media. The office was opened in November 2010, is managed by Alexander Warzilek and is based at Franz-Josefs-Kai 27, 1st floor, 1010 Vienna. The press council is financed by membership fees of its sponsors and by means of press funding (see § 12a PresseFördG). State funding amounts to 150,000 euros per year. The decisions of the press council primarily have the character of a warning and appeal, neither penalties nor compensation can be awarded. The "pillory effect" of decisions within and outside the media industry should not be underestimated.

structure

The press council has three senates, each composed of ten established journalists and a legally qualified chairman. The incoming cases are alternately assigned to the senates. There are also two ombudsmen who try to mediate between the medium and the person concerned. In order to be able to make a decision, at least four members of the Senate must be present. If a case is dealt with that affects the medium of a member of the Senate, this member is biased and does not take part in the proceedings. In contrast to Germany, there are no publishers represented in the Senate. The sponsoring association of the press council, to which 14 representatives of the sponsoring organizations are posted, meets at least once a year. He decides u. a. the budget of the press council, changes to the code of honor and appoints the independent members of the Senate who are not subject to instructions.

Procedures and decisions of the press council

Every reader can send a message to the press council about an article in a print medium (by letter or e-mail to info@presserat.at). The responsible Senate of the Press Council then decides whether it considers it necessary to initiate a media ethical procedure. If the Senate does not take up a case, it usually provides a reason. Anyone who is personally affected by an article can initiate a complaint procedure with the press council. In these proceedings, the press council is an arbitration board. However, the person concerned must refrain from going to court. The proceedings of the press council are free of charge. The decision-making basis for the two senates is the code of honor for the Austrian press , a catalog of media ethical principles. The most important principles of this code include the obligation to be conscientious and correct in research and reproduction of messages, personal protection (including protection of human dignity, honor and privacy), a comprehensive ban on discrimination (e.g. against women, migrants or marginalized groups), the prohibition of outside influence on editorial contributions and the obligation to cautious reporting in the event of suicides ( Werther effect ).

Important decisions of the press council are made public through press releases. In 2015, the Press Council dealt with 253 cases, in 44 cases ethics violations were identified, in 2016, however, 307 cases with 33 ethics violations, and in 2017 320 cases with 30 violations.

Selected decisions

  • The use of the term “ Negro children ” is seen as a violation of the code of honor and denies a satirical context.
  • The Kronen Zeitung has violated the code of honor through several articles in which beggars or the “ beggar mafia ” were discussed.
  • Unreflective reproduction of postings that harm personality (“perpetrator should be hung up”) on heute.at is a violation of ethics.
  • Fake hate postings on Facebook for research purposes for an article in the specialist journal The Austrian journalist found the press council to be unfair.
  • An advertising series by Novomatic was not sufficiently marked as such in Heute MagazIN .
  • The press council rated the phrase “hot date” in connection with sexual abuse in the daily newspaper Austria as trivializing.
  • The publication of brutal images of the so-called "Islamic State" in the Kronen Zeitung violates human dignity, according to the press council.
  • The publication of a video on heute.at showing a woman naked on the street violates privacy.
  • Courtesy interviews with company bosses, which mainly contain advertising language, violate the code of ethics.
  • Discrimination against kindergarten children through captions in the right-wing national weekly magazine Zur Zeit .
  • Discrimination and general denigration of the liberated Mauthausen concentration camp in the right-wing extremist magazine Die Aula .
  • Surreptitious advertising for rolls in an article in the Kronen Zeitung about the Super Bowl is questionable in terms of media ethics.
  • The false accusation of sexual abuse against a black woman in a swimming pool on the website wochenblick.at is a serious violation of ethics.
  • A column about refugees in a supplement to News magazine (including the statement that “refugees are taking away children from Europeans”) was seen as discriminatory.
  • In a statement, the press council criticizes the publication of a violent video (a young person is beaten and seriously injured in it) in several media and on Facebook .
  • Publication of brutal images from the civil war in the Congo in the street newspaper We the People is a serious violation of ethics.
  • Publication of a photo of grieving relatives in NÖN violates privacy protection .
  • The detailed description of abuse of a three-year-old on the website oe24.at is a violation of personality.
  • Post-mortem personal injury and the like a. by publishing a picture of a (alleged) murder victim in the daily newspaper Austria .
  • A series of articles on "wochenblick.at" about the refugee situation in Sweden was reprimanded by the press council because it repeatedly contained false information.
  • The press council assessed a report on the suicide of a child in the magazine "News" as too detailed and therefore as a violation of ethics.

history

The organization for media self-control was founded in January 1961 by the Association of Austrian Newspaper Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (today: VÖZ) and the Art, Media, Independent Professions Union (Journalists Section).

The task of the press council was to investigate, examine and assess complaints from readers, newspapers or those affected about reports. The organization was able to dismiss a complaint, it was able to judge that “the professional duties of the press” had been either “violated” or “grossly violated” by the incriminated publication, or “the reputation of the press” had been damaged by the publication.

The presidency of the press council rotated annually between a representative of the VÖZ and a representative of the journalists' union. Delegates from the two co-opted organizations Presseclub Concordia and the Austrian magazine association were also represented in the committees .

In the 1990s , 88 Austrian daily newspapers and magazines carried the Press Council's seal in their imprint, thereby undertaking to publish the press council's assessments if they concern their own reporting. Only the largest Austrian newspaper by far, the Kronen Zeitung , closed itself to the committee from the start.

Conflict with the crown and other newspapers

The Kronen Zeitung, with a reach of over 40 percent, was one of the few Austrian newspapers that did not join the press council, but it was often targeted. The columnist Richard Nimmerrichter, for example , was reprimanded in 1993 for a comparative article between Adolf Hitler and Paul Grosz , the then President of the Israelite Religious Community of Austria. Krone publisher Hans Dichand was warned around 1997 because he had accused a rival newspaper of having sided with the murderers of the Katyn massacre . Verse columnist Wolf Martin was reprimanded by the press council in 1996 for a poem about homosexuals and in 2001 for a poem in which he described the colporteurs of the homeless magazine Augustin as "bothersome as lice and bugs". The Crown criticized most of these press council decisions and repeatedly called for their withdrawal.

The conflict escalated in the dispute over a Krone title page on October 8, 1997. It showed Franz Fuchs , who had just been arrested but not convicted and suspected of having sent several letter bombs . Above the picture was the headline : "A picture like a confession". The press council condemned this type of reporting, and the Kronen Zeitung sued the press council for credit damage. The lawsuit was dismissed by the Supreme Court of last resort in 2000 .

The daily Everything newspaper did not even join the press council. This and the resistance of the Kronen Zeitung to the decisions of the Press Council led to the fact that the organization increasingly lost its role as an objective authority through numerous public debates at the end of the 1990s. The daily newspaper Austria sued the press council, which was re-established in 2010, without success on two occasions because of obstructing their competition. The relationship between this newspaper and the Press Council has improved in the meantime - it joined it in March 2017, and a journalist from this newspaper is now also represented in Senate 3 of the Press Council. Even if the "Kronen Zeitung" and the free newspaper " Heute " still do not recognize the code of honor for the Austrian press, the press council has meanwhile re-established itself as an ethical body for the media industry.

Disintegration and re-establishment

In December 2001, the Association of Austrian Newspapers (VÖZ) finally terminated its participation in the Press Council. The VÖZ justified this step by stating that the self-control of the media had to be strengthened and that this could only be done by the media themselves (not by interest groups such as the journalists' union). However, negotiations on a new model of the press council failed in 2002. In 2010 the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions, represented by the Austrian Journalists' Union in the GPA-DJP, the Association of Austrian Newspapers, the Association of Editors-in-Chief, the Austrian Association of Magazines and Specialists, the Association of Regional Media Austria and the Concordia press club to reintroduce a self-regulatory body for the print media.

literature

  • Karmasin, Matthias; Kraus, Daniela; Kaltenbrunner, Andy; Bichler, Klaus (2011): Austria: A Border-Crosser. In: Eberwein, Tobias; Fengler, Susanne; Lauk, Epp; Leppik-Bork, Tanja (ed.): Mapping Media Accountability - in Europe and Beyond. Halem, Cologne, pp. 22-36.
  • Bauer, Franz; Koller, Andreas; Warzilek, Alexander: The press council as a media ethical control body. Media and Law 2013, p. 6 ff.
  • Bichler, Klaus (2010): Media Self-Control in Austria in Web 2.0 - How Blogs, Twitter and Co. observe, reflect and criticize journalism in Austria. Master thesis. University of Vienna.
  • Gamillscheg, Felix: The Austrian Press Council 1979–1989 , VÖZ, Vienna 1990, ISBN 385326915X .
  • Gottwald, Franzisca, Andy Kaltenbrunner, Matthias Karmasin: Media self-regulation between economy and ethics. Success factors for an Austrian model. Series: Studies on Media Practice. Publication series of Medienhaus Wien, Volume 1. Vienna, 2006, ISBN 3825899810 .
  • Warzilek, Alexander (2013): The re-established Austrian Press Council - a first balance sheet and a look into the future. In: Koziol, Helmut; Seethaler, Josef; Thiede, Thomas (ed.): Media Policy and Law II. Jan Sramek Verlag, Vienna, pp. 39–50.
  • Warzilek, Alexander: For the self-cleaning of the media. Salzburger Nachrichten of September 17, 2013, p. 22.
  • Warzilek, Alexander: When southerners make headlines. Wiener Zeitung of April 25, 2014, p. 20.
  • Warzilek, Alexander; Preiser, Anna: Refugees in the media. Wiener Zeitung of November 29, 2016, p. 25.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "organization" presserat.at
  2. ↑ Interview with Press Council Managing Director Alexander Warzilek ( Memento from July 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: M - Menschenmachen Medien 5/2012
  3. ↑ Press Council: "Krone" violated the code of honor most often. In: derStandard.at. March 4, 2016, accessed December 10, 2017 .
  4. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/pdfs/fallstatistik_presserat_2011-2016.pdf
  5. ↑ Press Council: The term "Negro children" violates the code of honor. In: derStandard.at . April 11, 2014, accessed on April 13, 2014 : "A journalist can be expected to seriously deal with charged terms (...)"
  6. ↑ George Zakrajsek: A knavery . In: My Styrian . Leibnitz district. No. 3 . Graz February 2014, p. 4 ( online [accessed April 13, 2014]).
  7. ↑ Press Council: "Krone" articles about beggars violate the code of honor. In: derStandard.at . April 8, 2014, accessed April 13, 2014 .
  8. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2015/entscheid_2014_205_28.01.2015.pdf
  9. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2015_192_10.12.2015.pdf
  10. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2015_s_007_10.12.2015.pdf
  11. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2015_209_15.12.2015_hp.pdf
  12. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2015_s_008_-_ii_15.12.5012_.pdf
  13. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2016_010_22.03.2016.pdf
  14. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2015/entscheid_2015_017_25.02.2015.pdf
  15. ↑ Decision of the Press Council 2015/225
  16. ↑ Decision of the Press Council 2016 / S 002
  17. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2016_022_07.06.2016.pdf
  18. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2016_212_18.10.2016.pdf
  19. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2016/entscheid_2016_209_18.10.2016.pdf
  20. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2017/stellungnahme_2016_259_10.01.2017.pdf
  21. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2017/entscheid_2016_249_14.12.2016.pdf
  22. ↑ Press Council reprimands pictures of war victims in magazine (January 27, 2017)
  23. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2017/entscheid_2017_029_28.03.2017_hp.pdf
  24. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2017/entscheid_2017_056_25.04.2017.pdf
  25. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/rte/upload/entscheidungen_2017/fall_2017_068_on_05_entscheid.pdf
  26. ↑ http://www.presserat.at/show_content.php?sid=38 List of media participating in the press council
  27. ↑ Daily newspaper "Österreich" participates in the press council. In: derStandard.at. February 16, 2017. Retrieved December 10, 2017 .