Manipulation on public service broadcasting? Professor raises serious allegations against the ZDF

Manipulation on public service broadcasting? Professor raises serious allegations against the ZDF

manipulation in public service broadcasting? The renowned professor and dramaturge Bernd Stegemann make serious allegations against ZDF and his news program "Today Journal". In a guest contribution for the "FAZ" he criticizes the way the agreement between Tunisia and the EU was treated in the show.

Specifically, it is about the program of July 16, 2023, in which the refugee agreement was reported. The agreement stipulates that Tunisia is supported with up to 900 million euros from the EU in order to tackle tugs and illegal crossings and thus reduce the number of life -threatening crossings via the Mediterranean. The negotiations included EU Commission President Ursula von Leyen, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Professor Stegemann primarily criticizes the selection of the image and the cut in the article. The order of the scenes conveys a certain message. The article begins and end with the refugees, which gives them the first and last word. This gives the EU team's work a "brutal character". Stegemann accuses the ZDF that the images suggest that the EU is blind to the misery of preferring to help with a dictator than to help the refugees and let the right Giorgia Meloni drive.

The professor draws a tough conclusion: Many people now have the feeling that something is not true with some contributions on public service broadcasting. Anyone who greet the political thrust should consider manipulation as irrelevant or even correctly. But for those who have doubts about it, the attempts to influence the subliminal influence are extremely problematic.

The ZDF rejects the allegations to the request of the Bild newspaper. The “Today Journal” contribution of July 16, 2023 dealt with the refugee situation in the context of the agreement. A further classification was also made in an expert interview.

This incident is part of a series of failures and breakdowns on public service broadcasting. The ZDF satirist Jan Böhmermann described the CDU on Twitter as "Nazis with substance". The WDR showed her own employee as an alleged customer in the supermarket and the youth broadcaster "Funk" put CDU party leader Friedrich Merz in a row with the right-wing extremist AfD man Björn Höcke.

It remains to be seen how the public broadcasters deal with these incidents and whether they are consequently drawn from them. However, the accusation of manipulation in public service broadcasting is in the room and will certainly spark further discussions.