Cherno Jobatey has been working as a journalist and TV presenter for the ZDF morning show since the 1990s and hosts and produces the UdLDigital talk show, Germany’s highest-reach political talk show on the internet.
Born in Berlin, he studied politics at the FU Berlin and as a DAAD scholarship holder in Los Angeles. He has been writing for Berlin and national newspapers and magazines since his student days. He came to television via a student job as a photocopying assistant. Cherno Jobatey was also editor of HuffPost Germany, for which he also worked as a writer. Since 2012, he has been a lecturer at various universities, including St. Gallen and TU Munich.
Cherno Jobatey Lecture topics
- Digital power. The new battle for the sovereignty of interpretation
Knowledge is power. And the attention that is needed to be able to communicate knowledge in the first place has always been hard to come by. Attention is a valuable commodity in our knowledge society. Because whoever has the attention also has the power of interpretation.
A creeping change began back in the 1990s with the invention of the browser: since then, the internet has been available to everyone. The digital revolution is still shaking things up today. Traditional business models are changing, as is communication.
The first big, unmistakable sign of change was that a political nobody from the Midwest wanted to become US president and actually won against the party elites. The Obama election made it clear years ago just how much the economy of attention had changed.
Since the Trump election at the latest, it can no longer be denied that the game has changed. With the help of modern technology, anyone can in principle defeat their old-fashioned opponents fairly cheaply.
TV journalist and presenter Cherno Jobatey explains the new rules of the game. And also how everyone can learn something from it in order to play along.
- Digital power. The new economy of attention
Those who recognize the laws of the new media economy and follow them have enormous advantages – and are not so easy to attack!
With the help of a digital toolbox, network effects can be used to achieve a reach that was unimaginable for a long time.
In the past, mass media had to be liked in order to gain reach. As a rule, this meant that you had to be well received by individual editors. Today, it is crucial to present something on social media in such a way that it is recommended – usually quite spontaneously. This can multiply the reach.
- Disruption in Politics
What was only a topic for political gourmets during the Obama election in 2008 has become obvious to everyone since the Trump election: the competition for the sovereignty of interpretation works according to new rules. Trump stands for the disruption of old-fashioned politics.
With the help of modern technology, anyone can in principle defeat or at least attack their opponents if they rely too much on tried and tested methods – and at a very low cost. The CDU staggered after the Rezo video shortly before the European elections, and the SPD and FDP did not do as well as expected.
Why did the CDU, with its very European themes, fail to do so? How did the Greens manage to score so well in the election campaign? A stroke of luck or strategic agenda setting?
The same thing can happen to anyone who is in the public eye.
- Cherno Jobatey explains how to act and react in this world
Consumer behaviour has changed in almost all areas of life as a result of digitalization. Long-established habits no longer apply. And this change is continuing everywhere.
Cherno Jobatey, long-time publisher of HuffPost, which made it to 15th place among news platforms in Germany within three years, explains these new rules of the game. Anyone, regardless of whether they are a DAX-listed company leader, a medium-sized business, a private individual or the managing director of a company, can take advantage of these new opportunities.
Cherno Jobatey explains the silent revolution and uses examples from German politics, Brexit and the “Lady Gaga phenomenon” to illustrate in detail how the balance of power has shifted in the battle for opinion leadership and how you can use the new era to your advantage.
To put it bluntly: if everything has gone well so far, it’s been lucky! If you are not yet digitally involved, you run the risk of only having a wallpaper table in the third row on today’s marketplace instead of the centrally located, prestigious market stall you were used to. And all too often, this goes unnoticed: This brave new world is feasible, easy to use and affordable!
“Knowledge is power, nothing will change that. But never before have so many been so powerful.”
More about Cherno Jobatey
For more than 20 years, Cherno Jobatey announced the world situation in the morning from ZDF’s little box. Now he provides the ZDF morning show with self-produced contributions. Born in Berlin-Charlottenburg, he grew up in the carefully guarded Berlin Wall. A DAAD scholarship in Los Angeles had a formative influence. In sunny California, he not only studied politics and music, but also embraced the Californian way of life: Work hard, live relaxed.
Back in Berlin, he found his way to journalism in a roundabout way, financed by band gigs and DJ jobs: taz, Tagesspiegel, Zeit, Spiegel, Cosmopolitan, AZ München, Wirtschaftswoche, RIAS Radio. After years of training as a local reporter and film author for SFB (RBB), NDR and WDR, he eventually emerged as a weatherman – in front of the camera! Later he presented the regional news. Cherno quizzed nationwide on ARD with “Kopfball” and then the morning ratings hit “Morgenmagazin” began. In between, he made several forays into entertainment: “Memory”, “Leute Heute”, his own talk show on ORB and, of course, the ARD classic “Verstehen Sie Spaß?” for five years.
Cherno Jobatey has been producing and hosting the most successful online talk format “UdLDigital Talkshow” directly in Berlin’s Unter den Linden boulevard for several years. The concept: Top celebrity guests discuss in front of a live audience under the direction of Jobatey. Jobatey regularly welcomes political heavyweights from the German government such as Robert Habeck, Christian Lindner, Volker Wissing and many more. Plus experts, bloggers and hackers. The talks are streamed and followed closely by followers and the digital press. UDL Digital is a pioneer of today’s entertainment and information programs.
Cherno Jobatey also passes on his knowledge at universities. In seminars, lectures and talks, he teaches on the topics of political communication in the 21st century, media economics, journalism and rhetoric and business ethics. From 2013 to 2019, Cherno Jobatey was also the editor of the German edition of HuffPost.
In addition to all these tasks, however, he has always remained true to the stage: Cherno Jobatey appears as a speaker, moderates events, panel discussions, balls, galas and charity events. And if you’re very lucky, you might even see him rocking out on stage with his guitar.