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Fritz Jungmayr, responsible for the "Hohes Haus" programme #38 What is the bark beetle doing in the net? In June 2020, the National Council adopted an aid package for the forestry sector suffering from bark beetles and climate change. The House reported on this on Sunday 21 June. Immediately after the report, while the programme was still running, an email from a Tyrolean forest owner popped up in my control room, expressing his displeasure about the report that had just been broadcast. Just one of the regularly recurring examples. Only the digital revolution has made this super-fast reaction, googling the address, preparing the text, transmission in a fraction of a second, this modern and direct way of communication (in this specific case grumpy criticism) possible. It doesn't always make you happy, but a retreat behind digitalisation would be fatal (even lethal) and is inconceivable. Journalism that has missed the boat, or blocks itself from ongoing development, is, to use the image of forestry, on the proverbial wrong track.

The House of Representatives, i.e. the weekly parliamentary magazine and the live broadcasts of the National Council sessions as well as of commemorative and special events, belongs to ORF-2 Info, i.e. to the ZiB family. In the past, digitisation steps were always taken in the wake of Zeit im Bild. This house policy will probably also be adhered to with regard to further measures. With the upcoming multimedia newsroom, the High House will also reach the next level of digital transformation. Faster access outside and during broadcasts and live transmissions to information material prepared by the editorial staff on agendas, actors, legislative projects, historical developments, making of, etc., is certainly the largest and most important project that is in the pipeline.

If one understands digitalisation as a tool for expanding and strengthening the public resonance of politics, the expansion of our information and discourse offerings to include social media platforms, podcasts and possibly even blogs would at least be worth considering. But this is less a technical or content issue and more a question of personnel and cost. In other words, a political decision that others have to make.

Digitisation in the original sense means the treatment of a person with digitalis. In other words, the treatment of heart failure with digitalis glycoside, the active ingredient of foxglove. The House sees itself as the heart chamber of parliamentary journalism. To ensure that this heart can continue to beat long and strong, further steps towards digitalisation are the best medicine.