Quarter Life Crisis

The world according to Sven-S. Porst

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Tagesschau

466 words

Dave Winer found out that Germany's main TV news show, Tagesschau, can be watched online and they even provide archives of their past shows.

I knew the former and used it to catch up with what's going on in Germany while I lived in England but I wasn't aware of the latter which is neat. Probably one of the joys of public television.

And while I'm at it, may I add that Tagesschau kicks ass as far as news are concerned. Their main show is only fifteen minutes long but it leaves you by far better informed than any other news show I have seen – even those lasting twice or thrice as long. And unlike local news shows in other countries, say, BBC's evening news, they have a decent coverage of world news, i.e. news coming from other countries – even if there isn't a famine or a war going on. Moreover international news isn't just an addendum to whatever else happened, generally it comes first in the show.

Just compare this to your local news station and guess how disappointed I was when I moved to England and random nonsense around Tony Blair's kids was considered 'news' whereas major things concerning countries elsewhere in Europe weren't. And this disappointment was even bigger as I had quite a high esteem of the BBC, having seen the international BBC World on German cable TV and knowing that the BBC are perfectly capable of making a decent news show – they just don't broadcast it to the people who pay them.

And the length bit is probably something that applies to German news in general – to newspapers as well as telly news – not only is there more information but it there in less space. Less prose for the same amount of information, if you wish. Perhaps it's not as fun to read as an English paper, but surely you're better informed in less time.

Of course, say, English media have other strengths, which in my opinion lie in their opinion-sections and interview styles. Be it in the paper or on telly. English interviewers tend to ask questions as many times as they need to get a satisfactory answer, whereas in Germany interviewers are tame and lame.

Back to Tagesschau, unlike what Dave says it is not a TV station but really only the main news show on Germanys federal public network. It has been around for decades and while browsing their site I saw that they offer their splash screens from different decades for download as a desktop background. I also discovered a – well hidden – RSS feed of the current headlines there. More on RSS feeds in a second.

NP

Radiohead – I might be wrong live recordings

April 8, 2003, 0:27

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