I became a member of Jungejournalisten.de seven years ago. It is a virtual network of young journalists who exchange their experiences on a common online platform called “www.jungejournalisten.de”. For me this is attractive because you can share your information, which you gained somewhere, with others – a good idea in my opinion, that’s the reason why I practice the same principle on www.bjvjungblut.wordpress.com.
I really believe in that all together are more powerful than one on his or her own. I think it is better to share my information with others than only to store them. Some when I could also get a link which might be helpful for my career… I think this is a better way of living together than fighting against each other. I do know, of course, that it is not always in one’s hands. But life is too short to spend time being nasty and trying to outdo each other.
And if you do a good job, it is not necessary to worry about your income – this is my experience… and I report only about this, about my experience and my thoughts.
One of the annual highlights is the big meeting of www.jungejournalisten.de. We meet each other at least once a year in various cities – depending on who is organizing some appointments with chairmen of newspapers, radio stations etc. It is quite interesting to look behind the scenes and to spend some days with interesting colleagues. The last meetings I attended were in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Hamburg. Everything at www.jungejournalisten.de is on a voluntary basis. Cool stuff that something like this exists!
“jj-reportagepreis”
This year we founded an award for young journalists in cooperation with Süddeutsche.de and Heinrich Böll Foundation. For me personally this award is highly important because I am deeply convinced that this is the future of journalism. With features, backround information, analysis and opinion statements we will earn money in the future and this is the reason why young reporters have to be introduced to the most difficult form in journalism as early as possible. More information about the jj-reportagepreis 2012 you can find here: http://www.jungejournalisten.de/.