Cologne City Gazette
Cologne (ots)
The media minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Nathanael Liminski, has again called on the federal government to act quickly on the delivery subsidy for press publishers. “Every year that goes into the country without any prospects will mean that the variety of newspapers in this country also decreases. The concentration process is in full swing,” he told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”. He accused Olaf Scholz of inaction: “The federal government is not in the slippers.”
The CDU politician sees the future of print journalism in jeopardy if the publishers do not receive support quickly. A look abroad proves that. In the USA there are large cities and regions where daily newspapers are no longer published. “We are finding that participation in and participation in democracy in these areas is particularly suffering,” said the head of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Chancellery. “We’re seeing extremist tendencies growing stronger there. So we’re no longer talking about speculation and potential dangers, but about a real economic danger for publishers and a real political danger for our democracy.”
The NRW media minister emphasized that stable broadcasting fees are also important in this context: “Most citizens only have a limited budget for media offerings. If money is a bit tighter, an increasing mandatory broadcasting fee may that one or the other cancelable subscription will be cancelled, perhaps also that of the daily newspaper. Public service broadcasting and private media are in competition with each other, not only in terms of journalism, but also for people’s money. We have to keep an eye on that.”
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Original content from: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, transmitted by news aktuell
