About my practice as a journalist

As I could not participate in the skype discussion of today, I’d like to make my own reflection about my job as a journalist and photographer. To start with, I want to describe the job, my tasks and my routine.

Since September 2018, I’m working at Moien.lu, one of the only Luxemburgish online news magazines in my little country. The team consists of my boss, Patrick Kleeblatt, and my person, as well as some correspondents. Most of the time, my boss treats the political part on a national and international level. I’m responsible for the culture, arts, music and environment, but I also get challenged by other subjects. For Patrick, it is important that I get an overview of everything that is happening, even though there’s going on so much on this planet every single day.

People often describe journalism as a social-manipulative media. We are the ones, who get forced to write our texts to please the client. I cannot deny, that this is this statement is completely unjustified, but at Moien.lu, I can express my opinion, treat the issues that interest me the most and blossom out in many directions. My boss always says that you’re doing your job the best way, when you like doing it. That’s the reason why he offers me a lot of freedom in my tasks.

At this point, I have to admit that his confidence in my person has been the most effective way to learn. I often catch myself doing a lot more research, asking other questions during an interview and wanting to know every little detail, when I’m really interested in an issue. The result is a deep elaborated text, with a lot of information and a pleasant writing style.

The essay

For the critical reflection on positioning practices and learning, I’d like to go more in depth of the manipulating, critical and informative areas in journalism. How do and/or should I treat the information I get in the communications or interviews? What information is ethical and where are the limits (f.ex. Is it okay to write about a violation of a minor or a car crash with death sequence?)? What impact does the internet have on my work?

During the next days, I’m going to observe myself in detail while working. Next to this, I want to make notes to the three different lenses.