Given the fact that German journalists do not identify with the role of watchdog, it can be concluded that the priorities for financing journalistic work lie elsewhere. However, our findings indicate that most of the main news media have sufficient financial resources for investigations of their own and do not have to rely solely on agency material. All of the main news media have subscribed to the big national and international agencies. But agencies often function as a starting point for observation and not as a source that will be adopted completely.
Most of the interviewed news media told us that they are in a good financial situation and have enough funding for in-depth investigations. However, a majority added that funding had been cut over the past years. The journalists’ unions confirm this finding: They also believe that the financial resources for in-depth research had been reduced. Furthermore, the unions complain that – despite the efforts of some bigger news companies and the public service media – most of the news media in Germany cannot afford their own investigations. To sum up: the investigated main German news media are in a good financial situation. For all of them investigation is a question of prestige. And apparently this is independent of whether the media are run commercially or publicly or of whether journalists see themselves as watchdogs.
