The second panel discussion dealt with the question whether the digital revolution is endangering freedom of the press and if so in how far. The panel started with two introductory notes. The first was held by Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer AG who, in his speech “Freedom of the Press – The Internet as Enabler”, summed up the financial difficulties posed by an excess free-of-charge supply of information in the internet. There is no journalistic independence without financial independence, he said and turned against “digital Maoism” which implies free content, always and for all.

Daniel Schmitt, Spokesperson of the internet platform „Wikileaks“ at the time of the conference, expressed the opinion that it is time for a change of thought and that it is not possible to match old paradigms and business models onto a completely new world. The digital revolution is not an option that humankind has and the technical and societal change cannot be stopped. This is the reason why it is a mistake to apply old business models into a new era. He explained that Wikileaks got donations of more than one million US dollars, without even starting an appeal and came to the conclusions that pay walls are not necessary. Moreover, as seen with the publication of the secret Afghan war documents, websites like Wikileaks support the established media.

Apart from both speakers, the panel included Philipp Schindler, Vice-president of Google for Nothern and Central Europe, Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, USA, Mark Thompson, managing editor for multimedia at Thomson Reuters, UK, Wolfgang Blau, editor-in-chief of “Zeit Online”, Mathias Müller von Blumencron, editor-in-chief of “Der Spiegel” and former editor-in-chief of Spiegel Online” and Michael Rediske of Reporters Without Borders. The panel was moderated by Christoph Lanz, the head of DW-TV.

Mathias Müller von Blumencron said that at the moment we have a “Darwinist situation” when big magazines with lots of traffic on their online platforms, like “Spiegel Online” are very fortunate in comparison to the “numbers three, four and five of each genre which are slowly drifting away.” In print as well as online, only the biggest players will survive. On the other hand, he listed examples like the “Huffington Post” and “Politico” (both USA) for quickly establishing on the market and being hugely successful by solely being internet news services which offer high-quality journalism. That is how new models replace the old ones. (It should be noted, however, that both models are funded by financially strong investors and “Politico” also distributes its content via print, TV, radio and primarily gets its revenue from the print format.)

Paul Steiger also did not view the development of the past decades as impairment to freedom of the press. “Of course it is a serious problem when quality newspapers are going out of business and the number of well-trained journalists decreases. But what is happening at the same time is that anyone who wants to say something can say it on the web.” In Steiger’s opinion the future will be dominated by smaller and more focused institutions. Steiger reported that when he edited the Wall Street Journal high costs of producing investigative projects that would take several weeks or months to do were offset by the thousands more mundane but nevertheless important articles. The web had fractured the ability to have a so-called “department store”-structure. On the other hand, this upgrades the quality journalism produced by investigative online services such as “Mediapart” and “ProPublica”.

Wolfgang Blau compared the change of the current change of the mediascape with the Gutenberg revolution and the ensuing chaos prevalent in publishing. Then, as today, it could not be foreseen where this would lead and whether it would actually lead to progress. “I am convinced that there will be highly profitable news organisations online but some of them might be new players and only a few of them might be old players because their mindsets mostly stand in the way of it.” A lot of editorial offices have been restructured within the past few years and the cooperation of online and print resources have mostly proven to be very successful.

Mark Thompson reported of Thomson Reuter’s refocus on video journalism because the costs of producing and distributing video have fallen dramatically. According to him, the future success of news media is based on relevance for customers. “However you define that group and the content that is relevant to them, once you figured it out you will succeed.” It should be noted however that freedom of speech and freedom of opinion online is continuously impaired.

Michael Rediske explained how Reporters Without Borders are now trying to support thousands of imprisoned bloggers. He warned that a change of thought has to take place as nowadays it is not only crucial to defend freedom of the press but freedom of information in general.

Philip Schindler also tackled the question of how to define freedom of the press. “Previously, a small amount of people controlled the means of production and distribution channels which clearly has fundamentally changed over the last years. Now, a lot of people having access to the means of production and to the distribution channels is a wonderful thing happening.” His opinion was not shared by everyone because the big online players like Google and Facebook have a major share in online communication. Schindler predicted that the next revolution that the industry has to face will come along with user-interfaces. There will be a fundamental shift in the way that users will interact with digital devices. Google is already preparing companies willing to take these advances on board by searching for new business models, for example. He stated that the financial future of journalism can only be secured by finding new business models.

Panel II

Panel III