Network for technology experts: Forum Technikjournalismus

Germany is a high-tech nation: Technology is a fixed part of our everyday life, and even the big challenges of our time – economic growth, climate change, ecology, and sustainability – are closely related to it. The media play an important role as a communicator of information to help determine what technological progress can achieve and where the opportunities and risks of modern technologies lie. The media’s task will increasingly be to explain complex technological correlations to a broad public in a generally comprehensible, professional, and critical way. This is where Forum Technikjournalismus comes in.

The Forum Technikjournalismus [technical journalism forum], or FTJ for short – an initiative set up by Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (F.A.Z.) GmbH and IFOK GmbH – aims to trigger dialogue between technology journalists, communication specialists from companies, associations, and institutions, technology journalist graduates, and experts from science and business. In its series of workshops, FTJ communicates expertise and methodology knowledge useful to journalists. As a result, journalists are able to report on important trends in modern technology objectively and critically. There are a huge number of high-tech developments that interest the general public and are relevant for business, for example renewable energies, sustainable building, communication, mobility, or biotechnology. At the same time, FTJ offers companies a platform to present information about their technologies to specific target groups and allow this to be put under the microscope. Companies can thus increase their presence in the media and raise their profile. By bringing all parties together, the FTJ has created a platform – both offline and online – for the exchange of information and provides journalists with a good research tool. FTJ sees itself as the pioneer of a new, independent, and strong journalistic discipline, namely technology journalism.