Not quite everything for the dream wedding (Swiss Press Text 2014, by Thomas Wyss) - Swiss Press Award

Tages-Anzeiger, Zürich-Bund

Thomas Wyss

My task was to write a story about the wedding of Tina Turner and Erwin Bach, based on what I had learned that day—we had shamefully completely missed the topic beforehand. Since I didn't want to write a classic people-journalism article, I spontaneously decided to write it as a research report, which naturally included a lot of information (which actually turned out to be correct after the wedding), but also offered a slightly parodic insight into the daily routine of a journalist. The fact that I had a diligent colleague at my side who constantly provided me with news from her source, and that I happened to end up at the table of a guest invited to the wedding during lunch, certainly didn't hurt this method of wedding reporting. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive when the article was published (although there were also readers who felt it was a disgrace to report on the event in this way) – and now that the media award submissions have arrived, many colleagues have told me I should definitely submit this article because it's quite unconventional, especially for local journalism. I was ultimately persuaded by these comments.