Europe lacks European media – still lot of topics are not well-covered, even if they have a huge impact towards the national countries. It’s the challenge of the young generation of journalists to shape their Europe in their media. And it’s just started to become reality.
You could all probably recognise these situations; in the middle of an Erasmus party in Barcelona, at holidays in Spain, Poland or Finland or even at a European Open-air Festival like Roskilde or Sziget, when you somehow feel a sense of belonging in a greater society. You feel like a ‘European’ and you just want to hug all Europeans How ever Europe is divided as never before; on one hand we have the European Union, the technocratic Political Europe that hardly excites anyone anymore. On the other hand we have ‘Europe’ as a way of life; young Europeans that feel naturally Europeans and live their lives as citizens of Europe. You can feel the smell of unknown cities and bracing variety of languages even in word ‘home’ which has got a new meaning for the Europeans.
In the frame of globalisation; the divided Europe has - or should have - an impact on young journalists’ education. How ever this is easier said then done given that the ‘real’ European Media is really rare. There are of course a few European magazines which cover the European Commission such as euobserver.com and the monthly paper for decision-makers called ‘German Times’ as well as that every standardized newspaper have at least a small headline for so called European politics followed by news from Brussels.
Consequently the possibility for young journalists to take part in European journalism is limited but still necessary; especially when the national politics are so influenced from Brussels and the cultural life is constantly internationalized. For these reasons an internship at a correspondent in Brussels while studying could be recommended as well as a stopover in Paris or any other capital in Europe to visit a correspondent and explore the possibilities of European co-operations.
In addition to the current mainstream journalism a younger generation of journalists is establishing a new European journalism along with new technologies and the innovative ‘user-generated content’. This we can find in youth projects such as: cafebabel.com and the ‘Indigo’ Magazine that truly bring European media forward with multilingual issues. Cafebabel.com has their main office in Paris, but several local editorial offices all over Europe, with more then 300 young involved editors and translators. Their web portal started 2001 as project of Erasmus students that wanted to discuss European issues. Today more then ten editors are full-time employees and they are constantly searching for new co-workers and volunteers who wish to develop European online journalism. ‘Indigo’ has since 2006 involved more than 100 young journalists, translators, photographers and layouters. With their national editorial teams they create a magazine in seven languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish and Dutch. ‘Indigo’ is a life-style magazine for young Europeans between 20 and 30 years old filled with culture, art, sport, fashion and celebrities as well as politics. The magazine is also planning on involving the readers the possibility to create and interact together with web 2.0 tools.
Besides these two European portals there are also smaller magazines such as plotki.net and n-ost.de that cover east European topics as well as networks such as SPINE Studentmagazines and the Federation of European Journalism Students (FEJS). Young journalists also have a platform in Europe called European Youth Press where over 48 000 young journalists from all over Europe create common projects together in forms of conferences, event magazines and training courses. The biggest event so far was the European Youth Media Days which hosted over 300 young journalists in the European Parliament to discuss politics and create media.
Even the European educations are increasing with Bachelor and Master Courses in the journalism field. One example is the new form of master ‘Erasmus Mundi’ which takes place in Maastricht. Journalism scholars already work cross-borders in a European society with innovative ideas such as: ‘ARTE’ a German French TV-project, Cafebabel.com and Indigo while the leading scholars of politics are still theorising the European arena. Surely this will come to change and European journalism will be redefined, not to mention the advancement of web 2.0. To take part in these experimental projects will definitely be valuable for everyone in the media field!
