This weeks focus is on the media reporting about the outcome of the German national elections on the 27/09/09.
Due to the change in political orientation of the government of one of Europe's strongest and most influential countries we will see a severe impact on the national and international economy as well as the financial markets.
It remains to be seen and reported on during the next couple of weeks if the new leaders can hold their promises and direct the economy back into a financial upswing after the recession.
The elections had a very poor participation of just over 70 percent. The outcome was that the CDU, the christ democrats, and the FDP which are both center right could for the ruling coalition.
The articles analyzed and discussed this week have been collected from the following sources; Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2b61abaa-ab82-11de-9be4-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1,
the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6237341/Angela-Merkel-claims-victory-in-German-election.html,
Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSLR3244020090928 and
Bloomberg http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8gMoq.MIhI4.
The first article that was analysed from the Financial Times is quite short and brief given the fact that this is a very important event for the international financial and business world in general. It still gives the reader a very good general picture of what is happening and has happened in Germany over the last years. This is done in a rather broad manner without going into depth in any particular area. Even though the majority of the text part of the article does not involve a lot of figures there also is a table with the results attached which helps the reader to inform himself and visualise the quantitative outcome.
In my opinion there is a slight bias in the article since the sentence “-ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic Party in a grand coalition” states a disagreement with the previous situation and there is a certain positive vibe about the new situation throughout the article.
The second article, which was published by the Telegraph, is a quite long and rather qualitative than quantitative report about the situation in Germany. It is rather “easy-reading” and not necessarily purely business. It gives a broad and informative picture for the reader and is more for someone that just wants to be informed and in the know rather than someone who professionally has to deal with and rely on the information he is obtaining from the reading, its easy to understand but doesn’t give a lot of depth on the downside. Overall the reader can clearly see that the article is from a more news focused than business focused magazine. Business is of interest but it’s not the main objective and there is no form of bias of any kind in this article.
The Reuters article reaches quite far into the past and also into the future and kind of makes assumptions about the results of the outcome of the elections. It also goes and also explains the history more thoroughly than others, which gives a reader that has previously not been that well informed an a lot better picture.
The article indicates multiple times how important the elections were for the international business world but especially Germany. The key benefit of this article which is clearly written for a business point of view but in no way overcomplicated is that it clearly evaluates what can be expected in the future from this outcome and analyses it in depth. It even allows less informed readers that still understand the general matter what to expect and what to prepare for.
When reading the Bloomberg article one can clearly tell from the beginning that it is very business focussed and that business is the main objective. It has a very clean structure because it is divided into several different paragraphs, which make it easier to find, differentiate and understand information. It has a very broad international capture which also includes for example the influence on the war in Afghanistan but also goes into details like the percentage of participation of the voters. It gives a very good general and broad picture without neglecting details and there still is sufficient quantitative and qualitative information to make it very interesting for a reader that comes with basic knowledge and information. Throughout the article there is no form of bias to be found.
Overall all of the four articles report in similar ways just in different levels of complexity and business depth. The only one where I could identify a very slight form of bias was the one from the Financial Times, but even that was absolutely minor. The most advanced one was without any doubt the one from Bloomberg and the one that was easiest to digest and basically had the purpose of general information about the situation was the one form the Telegraph. Giving my analysis, I would from a financial communication point of view rate the articles in the following order:
1 Bloomberg
2 Reuters
3 Financial Times
4 The Telegraph
This obviously means that the reader has basic background knowledge and information which I considered a given in this field of interest.
