Bildblog for all (countries)! The best watchblog (I know?), the Bildblog, expanded his watching material today. It was founded as a watchblog for Germany’s biggest tabloid: The (in)famous Bild Zeitung. Sometimes Bild takes care of ruining its own credibility, not only by printing nonsense headlines („We are pope“ or „Obama kisses Germany“ when he greeted Chancelor Merkel) but also by uncovering the aweful truth: Hitler had flatulence. (Wow, there’s even an english version). For all the other times, there’s Bildblog. They recheck articles, facts and figures, call out immoral behaviour and  translate Bild language in truth.

As of today these fine men and women expand their Aufklärung on other media. They argue that, while Bild didn’t get any better, other  newspapers got worse. Economic pressure forces all newspapers to make cuts in research and therefore quality, while being tempted to give in on product placement. From now on you will be able to watch how news change from the real world to the agencies to the newspapers and outlets. They started off today with an article arguing that the 5.3% negative revenue that Reuters saw in February  2009 in comparison to Feb 08 has one good reason: February 08 had 29 days and one day out of 25 buissiness days is: 4%. The headlines resulting ranged from cautious „Retail sale suffers from recession“ to screaming: „Recession kills retail sale“

Considering the amout of crap Austrian newspapers are reporting, it is time for an Austrian media watchblog. Just this last weeks, Österreich reported that Peter Alexander had a heart OP and screamed „Today, USA elects Obama“ 6 hours before polls opened while the largest newspaper in the world (1), the Austrian Kronen Zeitung called the accusations of Helmut Zilk a lie before even reporting of what he was accused of. Considering that the Homepage of Kronenzeitung is one of the only tabloids on the web trend map showing the 333 most influential web pages one can only hope that Austria gets its media watchblog soon. All attempts so far have failed since they were either a) a spell watch blog, like the recent and still active Österreich Blog, b) a Letters to the editor watchblog, like the Krone Blog (2) or c) are just dead, like the ORF.at Watchblog.

Here’s applauding the Bildblog for expanding and hoping that Austria will have a Watchblog that is not only watching but also watched.

(1) In relation to population. 45%ish Austrians read Kronenzeitung on a daily basis.

(2) The Krone Blog actually got better recently, but publishes irregularly.