The German Internet Manifesto, initiated by Sascha Lobo, Mario Sixtus, and Thomas Knuewer and supported by 12 named others – including the Guardian’s Mercedes Bunz – lays out 17 commandments for ‘how journalism works today’ (translated into several languages via http://www.internet-manifesto.org/).

However it has its critics, as well as its fans.

Take Stephen Moss, Guardian journalist (G2 thinker-in-residence, or  naturalist?) for example. Writing under his colleague Mercedes Bunz’s report he leaves a comment in response to Boombox:

boombox 09 Sep 09, 2:06pm:

“It’s funny how the people keenest on “journalism manifestos” never actually do any.”

stephenmoss 09 Sep 09, 4:59pm:

“That’s so unfair boombox. Sascha Lobo has been doing remarkable reportage from Kabul, Mario Sixtus has penetrated the tribal areas in Pakistan and filed a 200,000-word report on how Al-Qaida operates on his blog, and Thomas Knuewer is no doubt even now exposing commercial exploitation in the developing world, local government corruption in Dusseldorf and banking scandals across Europe. This is absolutely not just navel-gazing German theorising.”

Patricio Robles, technology reporter at Econsultancy also raises some interesting issues:

“While it does contain some succinct pearls of wisdom, it’s not exactly the Magna Carta for 21st-century journalism.”

He points out that it includes little discussion of journalistic ethics, and criticises its ‘PowerPoint marketing-speak’.