ABSTRACT
In his comedy The Journalists of 1853, the German writer and journalist Gustav Freytag makes fun of local journalism in a small German town. With fun and wit, he addresses the theme of journalism as a commodity just according to political principles of opportunism, up to and including the sale of the local newspaper to the political opponents. Journalism for sale is also a theme in the 1890 novel Money by the French novelist Emile Zola where it is treated as a decidedly serious problem. In Zola’s novel, the entanglement of journalism and money is more intense than in Gustav Freytag’s play; newspapers are even traded on the stock exchange as economic ventures. Finally, it concludes by looking at Mario Vargas Llosa’s La tía Julia y el escribidor, which is used to draw the three pieces together for a critique of the modern state of journalism. In addition to a comparison of the three literary works, the author classifies the debate about money, bribe, and journalist in present communication theory discussions.
