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Everyone can be Bildblogged

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:33:42 +0000

After almost five years of correcting and criticizing the Bild-Zeitung, and in the process becoming one of Germany’s most read blogs, Bildblog now announces a new policy: From now on the Bildbloggers will take on all German media.

Ideally there should be more media watchblogs of this kind, but I can see why they’re lacking. It takes a lot of time, effort and persistence to carry on such a demanding project for years. You can find some examples of what they’ve been doing in my previous posts about Bildblog.

To be or not to be Wilhelm

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:23:24 +0000

Fact-checking is easier than ever, but beware! Yesterday German tabloids printed with great pleasure the full name of the new German economy minister on the front page — irresistible, since his name comes in 16 parts (if you count in “von und zu”). Wait, turns out that should have been 15. An anonymous prankster now claims to have inserted the extra Wilhelm into the Wikipedia article about Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg at just the right time. Here’s the crucial edit. So German journalists went to Wikipedia to research the new minister’s name, and you can figure out the rest. At least one wikipedian got suspicious and weeded out Wilhelm again fairly quickly, but, according to the prankster, then came the next twist: Since Spiegel Online and other sources had published stories with the false Wilhelm in it, the name could now be verified with reference to… Spiegel Online and other sources! And so Wilhelm made a comeback several hours later.

The prank illustrates the pitfalls of modern fact-checking and Wikipedia dependency flawlessly. File under media literacy courses and journalism school/research.

UPDATE: Zeit Online has an interview with Mr. Anonymous.

Goliath defeated

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:48:32 +0000

Bildblog can continue to file complaints against Europe’s biggest newspaper Bild-Zeitung at the German press council, the Presserat itself decided yesterday. As previously noted, the newspaper had complained about the workload generated by the diligent bildbloggers.

Frustrated Goliath

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:20:22 +0000

The saga of Bild-Zeitung vs. Bildblog has a new chapter. The huge newspaper wants the German press council (Presserat) to stop accepting complaints from the small, but famous watchblog. The workload those complaints (12 to date) place on the organization is just too large, and besides, the Bildbloggers just do this to generate fuzz which generates ad revenue for themselves. The Bildbloggers answer, while we just shake our heads in disbelief. What a mountain of arrogance a big newspaper can amass over the years.

See also:

Bildbloggers as unpaid editors

How to define non-news

A pre-bloggers blog PR

Bildbloggers as unpaid editors

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 23:57:55 +0000

A good one: Bildblog, which has become Germany’s most linked-to blog by looking giant Bild-Zeitung over the shoulder, has sent the somewhat larger “team” a bill of 2088 euro. It appears that the editors at Bild’s online version correct mistakes surprisingly schnell after the Bildbloggers have pinpointed them. So the bloggers claim that they have in effect become unpaid external fact-checkers and editors…

How to define non-news

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:20:12 +0000

Bild-Zeitung recycles a photo of Norwegian athlete Kari Traa from 2001. Editors shout in joy: Great news! Slut wins medal! What a headline! Another easy match for the critics over at Bildblog, of course.

A pre-blogger’s blog PR

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:24:14 +0000

Former Netzeitung colleague Christoph Schultheis (hi, csch!) probably draws more readers to Bildblog after the New York Times/IHT portrayed him recently. What doesn’t come through in the article, but should be duly noted in weblog and internet history, is that Christoph was co-responsible for a very early example of the journalism weblog genre that premiered back in November 2000. In the daily “Altpapier” (paper for recycling) column the media stories of the German newspapers were chronicled, commented, criticized and satiricized and of course linked to, and the first version was posted already around 9 in the morning. Here’s the very first column from November 6, a test piece before the real launch on Nov 8, as far as I remember. Other writers took turns with the column, but Christoph wrote over 300 of them over a period of 18 months. I think it’s fair to call the Altpapier (which is still going strong), a weblog, although we didn’t think of the term at the time. It’s success shows we were onto something important, and I only regret we didn’t continue to experiment with the format. It could easily have been used in other sections of the website.