German Sept 11 Theory Stokes Anti-US Feeling (Dubya did it!)

I think those at DU.com have finally found their Messiah.

But will they proclaim him Muad'Dib?

Too bad he's not black, then he would be an honored democRAT candidate like Al Sharpton. The democRATs and the media refuse to ever mention that LaRouche is a democRAT candidate, but he is no more of a kook and has no less chance of ever getting elected president than Sharpton.

Of course, if LaRouche were running as a Republican, the press would find a way to mention it in every article about the presidential campaign.

I don´t mind being corrected :-) But I am not so sure about more FOCUS´ being sold compared to the SPIEGEL. Actually, I said most IMPORTANT, and FOCUS is a mere joke. FOCUS´ quality is rather poor, some people call it the BILD Zeitung for (wanna be) intellecuals. The use of language in the FOCUS is poor, their headlines often are exaggerating and sensation seeking and their articles are way too short. The drawback of the SPIEGEL is that they are left leaning, but usually do a very good and solid research and have really quality journalists. Something you can´t say about the FOCUS, I think the TV ads for FOCUS featuring Markwort are VERY embarassing.

I wholeheartly disagree on all issues, feel personally offended by your rant, and you´re confusing the figures of "more sold magazines" and "most-read magazines". More SPIEGEL are sold, but the number of FOCUS-readers is several hundreds of thousands higher than SPIEGEL readers.

That was not a rant. I am not confusing sales and number of readers. Fact is, more SPIEGEL are sold than FOCUS (some 25 % are my figures). Fact ist, that there is a claim that more FOCUS are being read - I always wonder how they come up with claims like this, but I will accept it at the moment. It puzzles me that you feel "personally offended" by what I wrote. How come?

Please do a comparison based on facts:
1) Compare the layout of FOCUS and SPIEGEL - there is lots of more graphics and colourful thingies in the FOCUS, makes it look kinda immature to me.
2) You can´t argue the fact that most FOCUS articles are a LOT shorter than the SPIEGEL´s. They often lack the necessary depth when considering an issue. Of course, the fotos are nicer and bigger, but that´s not what I call quality with a news magazine.
3) Have you ever seen Markwort in a TV show? Have you compared his apperance to e.g. Aust or the now deceased Augstein? They are worlds apart when it comes to intellect.
4) The used language in FOCUS is often very simplistic, BILD like if you ask me. Ok, it´s not that bad, but FOCUS tries to keep its language very simple. Do a comparison between the two magazines and you MUST see the difference. Do you?
5) What makes a news magazine really important is how often its articles are quoted by other media, and here the SPIEGEL reaches twice the number of FOCUS. I am currently studying journalism and working as a freelancer for the FAZ, and believe me, the number of quotations is a BIG issue.
6) I really think the FOCUS TV ads are VERY embarassing, doing TV ads like that doesn´t really speak for quality journalism.

If I somehow insulted you I am really sorry! (Hey, after all we have the same mission here, defending the Fatherland :-) What I was trying to say - the FOCUS just doesn´t match the SPIEGEL when it comes to quality. The journalists working for the SPIEGEL are usually a class above the FOCUS when it comes to quality journalism. Unfortunately they tend to be left leaning vs. the right leaning FOCUS (Oh how I wish it was the other way around), but they don´t spare Schröder and the SPD as well, they just have more fun giving stick to the CDU. You know which paper is REALLY bad - the Frankfurter Rundschau. The have a life-size Kohl caricature (portrayed as pear, you might know that one from TITANIC satire magazine) in their editorial office where everyone feeling like it may just hit the paperboard Kohl.

Please try to do a objective comparison of FOCUS and SPIEGEL and you will notice the things I have just pointed out.

number of sold FOCUS magazines per week: 824,000
number of weekly FOCUS readers: 6 million
number of sold SPIEGEL magazines per week: 1,050,000
number of weekly SPIEGEL readers: 5,86 million

http://medialine.focus.de/PM1D/PM1DD/PM1DDB/PM1DDBC/PM1DDBCA/pm1ddbca.htm

I personally felt offended by your words, not only because I´m part-time working for the FOCUS magazine, but because I´m regulary reading the FOCUS since years and I do not consider myself a wanna-be-intellectual.

1) More text does not mean that the magazine is more informative or intellectual. In fact, pictures can say more than 1000 words! And, I more like to get the real numbers and figures in statistics (graphics) instead of getting the authors opinion expressed through his interpretation of the statistics.

2) FOCUS articles give the important facts of a story, unbiased. I don´t want my head get filled with a lot of crap I don´t need.

3) I will not give a statement about Augstein. He is dead.
And I´m not going to comment the personality of Mr. Markwort. Judging him is up to others.

4) Unlike you, I don´t see a difference in the language. And last time I´ve read the SPIEGEL I´ve find the same kind of mistakes you can find in the FOCUS (Kausalsatz).

5) Again, who cares about what others say? It´s fact that we´ve more leftists than conservatives in our media, so who cares about a leftist quoting a leftist?

6) I don´t judge news magazines on their advertisement, their content is relevant.

It makes me wondering that you´re heavily criticizing the FOCUS journalists. After all, they´re doing a great job. It wasn´t a SPIEGEL journalist who was killed by Iraqi troops while embedded in a US bataillon, was it?

Have a nice evening, I will not continue discussions based on personal opinions. We can discuss facts, and how to weight them, but not personal impressions.

Michael

1) More text does not mean that the magazine is more informative or intellectual. In fact, pictures can say more than 1000 words! And, I more like to get the real numbers and figures in statistics (graphics) instead of getting the authors opinion expressed through his interpretation of the statistics

Not in itself of course. But with most of the FOCUS articles I get the same feeling, whenever they are starting to get interesting and could go into depth - they suddenly end! Same goes with the STERN. The articles are not necessarily bad, but the good ones simply lack depth. If you think pictures make a good paper, than BILD must be a fantastic paper and the FAZ below average. Please reconsider. Have you ever done statistic worth yourself? Since having done it I consider pretty much every statistic useless as long as I don´t know the methods employed and the wording that lead to the results.

2) FOCUS articles give the important facts of a story, unbiased. I don´t want my head get filled with a lot of crap I don´t need.

There simply is no such a thing as unbiased media. Nowhere. For instance, the FOCUS was VERY LATE in writing about Kohls "Spendenaffäre". On the other hand the SPIEGEL ran a BIG story about Fischer´s terrorist connections. SPIEGEL seems much more unbiased to me. What do you mean by referring to crap?

reg 3) I think it is bad to center a news magazine around one man. Especially if the man likes all the attention.

4) I am not saying every author of the SPIEGEL is good and every author of FOCUS doesn´t know how to use our language, BUT do a comparison and you will see that FOCUS likes to keep its sentences simple (BILD like, but not to the same extent).

5) I think you are being a bit harsh here, the SPIEGEL for sure is not leftist. The FAZ cares a lot about quotations (they are the number one quoted daily paper) and you don´t seriously consider the FAZ leftist, do you?

6) Of course the ads of a paper make their image as well. With FOCUS the ads just complement the image of superficiality.

It makes me wondering that you´re heavily criticizing the FOCUS journalists. After all, they´re doing a great job. It wasn´t a SPIEGEL journalist who was killed by Iraqi troops while embedded in a US bataillon, was it?

Sure this was a brave journalist, but that´s not the point here. I heavily criticize FOCUS because to me it is not really a news magazine, it is a magazine with news articles (which are lacking depth) and lifestyle articles I normally expect to find in BUNTE or BILD DER FRAU, like "Germany´s 100 best doctors" or "The best way to find sleep."

To illustrate what I mean I wanted to compare the table of contents for both magazines. Since the FOCUS homepage did not really work (this links should have the contents, but did not work: http://a796.g.akamai.net/magazin) I am stuck with comparing the cover stories.

The SPIEGEL front page and cover story is "Al Qaeda´s terror offensive." The FOCUS cover story was "The new miraculous mobile phones". I have noted similar differences in the past which just made me sure not to consider the FOCUS as a serious news magazine.