Close does not mean: without distance
Anyone who gets very close to a story sometimes receives a journalist award. Or is at least praised by the jury for the courage and determination with which one has given insights into everyday life on a rescue ship or the machinations of smugglers' gangs. The Danish radio journalist Louise Fischer also got very close – but according to some of her colleagues, she crossed a line with her swinger club report, during which she drove with other guests with relish and let the recording device run along. It was criticized that one should only get involved in investigative research if there is no other way.
There is something to it, but: Apart from the fact that a swinger club report is about as investigative as a tour of the Hamburg red light district, it is more about sensitivities. It is true that Fischer can be accused of having applied the dubious marketing principle of “sex sells” to her journalistic work. But since no one was harmed or exposed, all that remains for her is to wish that from now on she is not always just the reporter who had sex in front of the microphone.
