Connect and Thrive

Germany’s mainstream media landscape has been struggling to appropriately and authentically include their audience in reportings and in their structures.

For example, in one of Germany’s most successful and publicly funded talk shows, hart aber fair, in 11 consecutive productions a total of 56 guests were invited to talk on current political and social issues regarding Germany as a whole. All guests were white, even though 25% of Germany’s population is assumed to be of color. The 57th guest was a person with Arab roots, who was invited to talk about a so-called “Arab clan criminality.”

This highlights not only the vast underrepresentation of people of color, but also their hyper-stereotypicalization through one-dimensional reporting. Effectively, media makers of color have taken it upon themselves to found their own independent media brands to cater content to communities that they felt were overlooked. As they do so, these journalists and content creators struggle to finance and scale their media endeavors due to a lack of resources and/or lack of business knowledge.

Connect and Thrive is an attempt to bring together media entrepreneurs of underrepresented communities and build coalitions to share insights and streamline resources, editorial capacities, and reach. The project plans to first identify one common pain point these entrepreneurs have by inviting them to a retreat and allowing them to share their experiences in an informal setting.

A prototype solution will then be developed and tested with the same entrepreneurs. Hopefully, after three test cycles, Connect and Thrive hopes to present a blueprint for other journalism entrepreneurs to follow in order to build coalitions and work together.

Updated November 2022