German Election 2005: The Role of the Media

Everything about the 2005 parliamentary election was unusual: Schröder's loss of support within the red-green coalition seeming to be more a reason for a resignation than re-election as chancellor. All the polling agencies bad predictions. The result working out to permit only coalitions among partners who don't like each other. Schroeder's Caesar-like reaction after the election as he laid claim to the chancellorship despite heavy losses.

And then there's the media's role.

I can't remember any parliamentary election during which the leading political media like SPIEGEL, Stern, ZEIT, the Süddeutsche Zeitung or the Federal Republic's TV broadcasters had not supported the left's leading candidate (except in 1990 when SPIEGEL publisher Augstein argued against Lafontaine because of his position against re-unification).

Whereas in 2005, with a few exceptions, there were hardly any media voices for the Left's candidate Gerhard Schröder. That the right-wing BILD newspaper attacked Schröder didn't surprise anyone (the surprise was rather the determination with which they did it). But SPIEGEL and Stern were also against Schröder. Even government media journalists with well known SPD ties who more or less habitually supported every SPD frontrunner in past elections failed to support Schröder in 2005.

SPIEGEL’s cover pictures from the parliamentary election years 1994 (Kohl vs. Scharping), 1998 (Kohl vs Schröder) and 2005 (Merkel vs. Schröder) bear witness to the sea change that has taken place:

 

(from left to right: Cover 40/1994 “Power transfer Still Possible?“ FDP (Kohl’s coalition partner) slips away. Kohl’s majority in decline”. Cover 39/1998 “Panic in the home stretch. Bugging operation and Tax Lies”. (Cover 38-2002 “Final spurt”).

     

(from left to right: Cover 12/2005 “The Long Good-Bye of Red-Green”. Cover 27-2005 “Schroeder’s Last Card”. Cover 28/2005 “What Does Angela Merkel Want? What Can She Do?”).

Schröder and other SPD politicians are completely right when they complain about the media’s biased reporting of the 2005 election (some exceptions apply). However, the SPD itself certainly profited in the past from biased left-leaning reportage. And the Greens more so when their frontrunner Joschka Fischer enjoyed the practical equivalent of teenage hero worship from a substantial number of political journalists (and sometimes still does even today). The left’s criticism of leftist media’s lack of support sounds downright hypocritical.

From an objective standpoint German journalists’ herd-like and unprincipled coverage is certainly regrettable. Whether it’s the Iraq war, the political climate, the Katrina tragedy, or George W. Bush, you’ll always find a broad media coalition with one sided, slanted journalism that makes it hard for the average German to form his own opinion. This isn’t just a betrayal of the citizen, it’s also a declaration of bankruptcy for qualitative, high-value journalism. Independent, self-critical journalism is in as short supply today in Germany as bananas were in the former communist East Germany.

I certainly agree with journalist Giovanni die Lorenzo when he states:

Almost every commentator sings the same sad song that politics is experiencing a credibility crisis. Not all of them notice that the media have long been part of this crisis because they don’t call themselves into question often enough. A few important media concerns have ceased to practice mutual criticism even when one of them stages a crusade or practices vendetta journalism on its critics. At the end of the day though it’s all about our credibility with the readers or viewers. Credibility means, as in politics: independence. And discernability.

(Translation by Richard Bartholomew)

Comments

[Gabi]

Die Journalisten waren zum ersten Mal fair: Schröder und RotGrün war am Ende. Die Leute wollten sie nicht mehr. Dies haben die Demoskopen richtig erfaßt. Und dann auf einmal ging Schröder in den Wahlkampf und legte los, daß es dem Volke gefiel, mit Parolen wie Frieden (der gar keine ist, lies Richard Herzinger) und Sprüchen über einem Professor aus Heidelberg. Das, genau das kommt an. Damit hat er die Leute überzeugt. Mit dummen Sprüchen. Sie änderten ihre Meinung! In dieser kurzen Zeit wurde Merkel mit Kirchhoff lächerlich gemacht, daß viele zum Sprücheklopfer Schröder zurückfanden. Und die Medien haben dabei wieder tüchtig mitgemischt.

Die Demoskopen lagen doch nicht falsch. Das halte ich für Unsinn. Es gab einen unheimlichen Meinungsumschwung. So sind die Leute. Politik? Inhalt? Neh, da braucht nur einer wie Schröder kommen und dämlich grinsen, da stehen die meisten Deutschen stramm bei Fuß.

Ich habe einige Wahlreden Schröders im TV gehört. Woran hat mich das nur erinnert?!

[George M]

Hi Gabi:

If you don't mind, I'll comment in English. I talked to my sister-in-law and a good lady friend in Germany last weekend. They both voted SPD.

My sister-in-law is not very well educated and she voted against Merkel because of the flat tax. She honestly thought that poor people would be financially strapped to pay more taxes. She didn't want to discuss the issues of unemployment and Zero growth. However, she did admit that there is poverty in Germany for the first time. She voted for Schroeder in the last election because she was afraid that the CDU would send her worthless son, (who was then 29 years-old), to Iraq.

My lady friend is married to a salesman, who is also a good friend, and who sits on the local SPD committee. (He is a moderate and pro-free enterprise.) She has more education than my sister-in-law. She also admitted that Germany now has many poor people. But to my astonishment, she excused Schroeder's handling of the economy. "After all, Helmut Kohl left him a mess."

I think if Angela Merkel modified her flat tax proposals and adopted the U.S. model (Earned Income Credit), she would have attracted more votes. If you are a single mother with two or more children, you will most likely pay no federal taxes until you make over $25,000 per year. Apparently, a pure flat tax gave many voters the jitters.

[PacRim Jim]

Germans making the V-for-victory sign of Churchill. Now I've seen everything.

[Gabi]

George,
recently we had a meeting with friends. They talked about Schröder's charisma. I had difficulties to stay friendly...

[Mike H.]

Hang in there Gabi, I know that it's frustrating sometimes, but change will come. It did here. My mother says it this way, "And this too shall pass." It does.

[FranzisM]

The breaking point was when Fischer and Schröder (in the visa affair resp. in the election) started treating the public the in same egomaniacal way they had treated journalists all along when the German media still needed Red-Green more than the other way round. But just when the leftist US media dropped their support of John Kerry and Michael Moore, this does not include that the weltbild that had made these journalists chose to back these individuals would also have been turned around 180 degrees. The media still cater to the inverted-reality Germany that Red-Green personified for all these years. And it's easy for a whole profession to entrench itself, as there is only little competition from Austria and Switzerland (not even Radio Free Europe uses the German language any more).

The most promising development in this mess is the Cicero scandal, named after a newcomer to the market, a Swiss-owned monthly that had quoted from classified BKA police documents on the link between Zarqawi and the mullahs of Iran, probably handed out by a renegade official. Otto Schily raided the journalist and the paper, and suddenly there is a overlapping of interests between activist journalists, pacifist civil libertarians and these who think the national security of Germany is better served by publishing than by withholding knowledge of the Iran-Zarqawi link. It already caused the SPD to withdraw its support of Mr. Schily as a candidate for the German foreign office, and the story might develop further. This political constellation is quite similiar to the scandal over NATO documents that in 1962 turned Der Spiegel into a lead medium of Germany.