“Weltspiegel” – The Reality of US Coverage in the German Media

(German version)

„Weltspiegel“ is a tv magazine on ARD, the foremost German public TV channel. ARD’s foreign correspondents report on international topics of potential interest to German viewers.

Coverage of the USA, especially of U.S. Administration politics, adheres to the highest journalistic standards. It’s objective, considered, and concerned with factual information.

Just kidding.

“Weltspiegel”’s reports from the USA are marked by an overwhelmingly arrogant, critical, know-it-all posture of moral superiority that’s become routine for the German left since the Vietnam war. Pro-Bush Americans appear on “Weltspiegel” as naïve jerks who are paid tribute only if they turn critical of the war in Iraq. On the other hand, leftist Bush critics constantly get complaisant opportunities to present their positions.

The U.S. Administration’s Iraq strategy is of course – we’re talking about German public TV here after all – declared a failure. The morale of U.S. soldiers in Iraq (and their loved ones in the USA) is allegedly sinking to never before seen lows, and naturally the U.S. Administration lied to the whole world about WMDs in Iraq. „Weltspiegel“’s reports aren’t silent about how „terror hysteria“ is increasingly endangering the foundations of civil society in the USA either. The hopeless plight of the “poor” in America – a favorite target group for coverage in the German media – is bemoaned to the point of tears.

Since German media employees can’t manage to explain for the life of them how an administration could get re-elected in the face of such horrific scenarios, TV viewers are plied with dire theories about elections stolen by Bush kool-aid drinkers. It probably merits no special mention that, for “Weltspiegel”, the death penalty in the USA is the result of the kind of totally out of control justice system imaginable only under a dictatorship. (We’ll present some typical passages from “Weltspiegel” reports at the conclusion of this text.)

To be fair, it has to be conceded that not all of “Weltspiegel”’s reports occupy themselves with criticizing the Bush Administration or the war in Iraq. Occasionally such typical American happenings as trappers auctioning off single women in Alaska, cosmetic surgery as a Christmas gift, holiday wish lists for Hollywood’s four-legged friends, or a Rodeo competition in prison are presented. This stuff nourishes the deeply rooted certainty, held for generations among Germans, that America is the home of comical people and bizarre goings-on.

“Weltspiegel” – The reality of US coverage in the German media. Their job is to communicate a caricature of conditions in the USA. (Translation by Richard Bartholomew)

Quotes

Crumbling Homefront / May 18, 2003
Fulton, NY
One of the largest companies, Swiss chocolate manufacturer Nestle, has closed the factory with a more than 100-year tradition of producing sweets. (...) 8% unemployment here in the state of New York, 6% in the country as a whole – it will take Americans quite a while to become re-accustomed to these kinds of figures and misfortunes (...)

Against the backdrop of war, the President now issues almost daily proclamations about how to help the ailing economy. His doctrine and secret weapon: comprehensive tax cuts. The idea is for Americans to be able to buy more, since more consumption means more jobs. But critics of all political persuasions say the billion-dollar tax cut program favors the rich, will make the budget deficit skyrocket, and will take several years to actually create jobs – too late for [the President’s] election campaign. (Translation by Laín Coubert)

Furlough on the Home Front / 11 July 2004
The townspeople of Killeen, Texas, are dispirited about the large number of their fellow citizens who are currently deployed on military duty in Iraq. This war is lasting longer than many had expected. And there is no end in sight. The soldiers families are suffering hardships. Until now, foreign duty was limited to six months duration. Calls to perseverance are ubiquitous in this military town in the heart of Texas. Of the 43000 troops originally stationed here, no more than 3000 remain.
Only specially selected service members are allowed to speak with us. And they all avoid talking about allegations of torture. (Translation by Paul Smith)

A population behind bars / September 14, 2003
...more than two million Americans are behind bars. (...) since stiffer drug laws were passed 30 years ago with minimum sentences similar to the penalties for kidnapping and murder. The number of prisoners has more than doubled since the stiffer penalties were introduced. (...) 650 new prisons have been built since then. Now opposition is growing. (...) Actor and director Tim Robbins says, “This is so dumb what we're doing, locking up drug addicts with violent criminals. Just dumb.” Actress Susan Sarandon says, “As a mother, I am horrified when children are taken away from you. That you’re in prison and you can’t see your children anymore. That just has to move you.”

The protests have never been as loud, yet the current government currently has priorities other than sentencing reform. (Translation by Jim Cohen)

Children in prisons: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

The Broken Special Forces Soldier / March, 14, 2004
Tyrone Roper has shot 20 Iraqis. Now, the U.S. Special Forces soldier is himself struck down, one of the many who have not come to terms with the war in Iraq. While inspecting an enemy soldier he had just riddled with bullets, something happened that would change his life. The man was still alive.
Says Tyrone:  “He didn’t cry, he just glared at me, full of hate. I saw how the life faded from his eyes. Then, it was gone, he just stared, his face still filled with hate.”

Since that day, death has been Tyrone’s constant companion. He cannot come to terms with having killed people, deserts, leaves his family, flees to Canada. Tyrone is an Indian, and looks for peace with his tribe. (...)
They taught me how to shoot, says Tyrone about his time in the U.S. Army, but didn’t prepare me for what war really is: death and misery, the horrible feeling of having power over the lives of other people. Now, at home, he hopes to find a way for himself back to life. (Translation by Joe Tamblyn)

Broken soldiers: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

When there are no jobs / October 31, 2004

On the streets of New York, Gerald Baars is searching for the losers of America’s economic policy. Sadly, he finds them just too quickly. To have a job, and be able to live off of that wage alone, is hard. Pressure builds from the top down. Unemployed college graduates replace clerical employees, they in turn replace sales people. Their only option is a cleaning job; a downward spiral. On Roosevelt Boulevard in Queens, you can see day-laborers - every day – standing in line, hoping for a job as a truck driver or a construction helper. Minimal wages are the rule, therefore one job is usually not enough. And the ones at the bottom – they collect empty cans off the streets. At least you get 5 cents for each one. (Translation by Heike Reagan)

Jobless, hopeless: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

USA: The Turning Away of the Bush Loyalists / 1 August 2004
Washington correspondent Patricia Schlesinger has travelled through the USA to ask Americans how they feel about the upcoming Presidential election. Former Bush supporters told her that it was foremost the Iraq policy of their President that turned them into Bush opponents. She met soldiers who had volunteered to go to Iraq and then on duty in Baghdad began to doubt their government. (...)

The next stop on our journey is Atlanta, in the state of Georgia. We have an appointment with a former Presidentt of the USA, with Jimmy Carter. We want to hear his opinion of the war in Iraq. In response he does something unusual for a former President: he sharply criticizes the incumbent. "How do you see the situation im Iraq?", we ask.
"America under George W. Bush has made serious mistakes", said the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"This war is one of them. It was unnecessary and its justification was based on false premises. That could either be the wrong interpretation of intelligence data or in some cases a falsification of the facts. The American voters will make their judgement about that in November. They will primarily be voting about this war."

In Washington we end our journey. There, where America has erected grat monuments to its presidents. The country stands for a peaceful, democratic world, that is its legacy. But the war in Irag has plunged America into self-doubt. (Translation by Scott Hanson. Scott's blog: PapaScott)

The Big Why? / May 9th, 2004
For over a week a small town in Maryland has been fighting a dubious reputation: Home to torturers (Lynndie England). Welcome to Cresaptown, home of the 372nd Military Police Company. The base is closed to reporters. The citizens of Cresaptown keep asking themselves the same question: what was
going on in the heads of our soldiers? Why did they do it? (…) many experts believe that the soldiers were a part of the intelligence services’ interrogation system. Tim Brown, a military expert with Global Security says, “After 9/11 the intelligence services were told, ‘We want results, at any cost’. They completely changed their way of doing business, with the express authorization of the White House and the National Security Council. They were supposed to get the job done." (...)

This behavior isn’t un-American. There are always mistreatments of prisoners in civilian jails - and that across the entire country.” (Translation by Hartmut Lau)

Torture: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

Soldiers’ Families Accuse – the Victims of the Iraq War / November 16th, 2003
Elaine lost her only son, Darious in a war she did not want, in a country she does not know, for reasons she does not understand. Darius only lived to be 22 years old. He was on his way home when his helicopter was shot down. His mother Elaine is still looking for meaning in her child’s death.

Since then her frustration and mourning has turned into anger. “They sent my son there although they didn’t have a plan. And they still don’t have a plan. I want some answers about why my son had to die for nothing.” Anti-war sentiment is growing in the small town of Orangeburg, South Carolina. Two thirds of its population of 14,000 is black. Most of them join the military because it offers college money or an easier path to a job. The students at Wilkinson High School mourn Vorn, Anthony und Darius. …

The mood has changed now, says the principal. Eight of our students wanted to join the military. Now it’s only two.” (Translation by Hartmut Lau)

Your Christmas present: plastic surgery / November 28, 2004
Americans get silicone injected into their feet. This makes great little pads, so you can walk better in high heels. That’s normal. Nobody frowns upon it. Nobody can frown anymore anyway. A lot of facial nerves are paralyzed by Botox. Liposuction during your lunch break. How far will the U.S. take their plastic surgery delusion? (Translation by Heike Reagan)

Plastic surgery delusions: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

Rescue from death row / April 17, 2005
Acquittal or death penalty – in the U.S., this judgment is a game of luck. If you can’t afford a good lawyer you might end up on death row. … More than 100 people have been wrongly sentenced to death, later they were acquitted.
Nobody knows how many innocents have been executed. Seeking revenge can blind you – blind you to justice. (Translation by Heike Reagan)

Blind justice: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

Election Fairness? / October 17, 2004
After the ballot-counting debacle in Florida in 2000, the current US presidential elections are also suspected of being manipulated. This time ballots are supposed to be processed by computerized systems that do not print receipts. They are manufactured by a known Bush supporter. In Bush-ruled Florida many supposed ex-felons, most of them black, have been striken from the voter registers. They traditionally vote for the Democrats. Washington correspondent Thomas Berbner investigates the question: Is there fairness? (This is followed by a pack of claims that the impending election could be rigged.) Even today many Americans believe the country is not governed by a legally elected president. The US has still not completely recovered from the constitutional crisis that followed the last election. For many then, not only was the election lost, but also the belief in democracy. (Translation by Paul Smith)

  Manipulated elections: America's reality, as presented by WELTSPIEGEL.

Comments

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Plastic surgery article shows how rich we really are.

What kind of disposable income we really have.

[LouMinatti]

They forgot to write an article about how Americans love to torture cute little puppies.

[MarkD]

The Nestle factory closing in Fulton (1st article cited above) was bad news, but several inconvenient facts are omitted. First, candy makers in general have been leaving the US because of our protectionist tariffs on sugar. Good for domestic sugar growers, bad for everyone else. I bet the EU could find similar examples closer to home.

Second, New York State has been losing manufacturing jobs in general faster than the rest of the nation because of high taxes and excessive regulation. I'll bet the EU can find examples of that closer to home, also.

In case anybody is seriously interested, the Nestle factory was purchased by the former employees and making chocolate. Upstate New York, like the Northeast in general, is losing jobs and population to more business friendly climates. I'll bet the EU can find examples of that closer to home as well - you know, names like BMW and Mercedes.

[Oh Eric!]

I just want to know two things. How much are Alaskan women going for and when's the next auction? (hoping gf's not reading this)

[infideldogma]

I feel let down by this. No American's immobilized by their own fat wallowing in a pile of fast food wrappers? It's about the only thing missing.

[Frogg]

Wow! What unbelievable propoganda about America. I say that as an American who lives in the middle of all of those stories. Quite honestly, it rises to the state run media of dictator countries (and, we know why they decide what and how to distort their news). It reaches the "dangerous" level. If media isn't truthful; our governments quit being honest.

Mainstream Media has lost much credibility in America because bloggers keep catching them in the act. But, I hope our media never reaches the distortions of the German media. Hope Germans are able to see the light and find the truth.

[americanbychoice]

The next time I go to Germany I promise to take a video camera, go to the Frankfurt Train Station and the zeil and take pictures of the homeless and drug users. Of course I may not be able to get anything since it doesn't officially exist.
I may even try to interview some beggars and let them tell me how the Government is letting them down by not providing mansions for them to live in, giving them free drugs, caviar for lunch, etc.
The things I have seen in Germany, you would have a hard time finding those in the US.
I just get tired of the America bashing and the mind control that has been going on for decades. Makes me ashamed to have been a German by birth.

[Chris]

In the article on the death penalty in America, the writer says "More than 100 people have been wrongly sentenced to death, later they were acquitted."

This a straightforward lie. No person on death row has ever been acquitted. (Additionally, no person on death row has ever been shown to be innocent of their crime.)

The writer does not understand that the executions were commuted to life sentences. In every case, the convictions for the original crime were upheld.

[Carl Spackler]

How can they run years of such freakish, gun owning, toothless, trailer dwelling, fat, violent, swine filled crap and not once come film my relatives? That’s it, screw Germany. My folks got their pride. If the Germans aren’t interested we’ll just all waddle out to our rust bucket car, drive to any of the hundreds of abandoned factories and string up a local Negro. Did you all know we got winter weight and lightweight KKK uniforms?

[Orbit Rain]

Weltspiegel is actually part of a larger neocon plot to keep Germans stupid...so far so good...

[joe]

Just a follow on to Fulton NY.

The unemployment rate as of April 2005 was 4.7%. This from the city website. Since April 2005 the US economy has continued to expand.

Does anyone know what the unemployment rate is for Germany?

[Don Miguel]

So many distortions and falsehoods, I actually had to laugh. But I really liked this one, speaking of Ft. Hood: "Calls to perseverance are ubiquitous in this military town in the heart of Texas. Of the 43000 troops originally stationed here, no more than 3000 remain." Yes, of course Ft. Hood, the largest Army base in the U.S., only has 3,000 soldiers remaining in it! It would take 5 minutes of research by a real journalist to find out that that is crap.

[SaschaPascal]

Well, it's quite funny to read, how few media competences are here in this blog...

you don't know really the concept of the Weltspiegel, most of you never watch it, but you think, you know, that all of the articles about the USA are anti-US.

Well, you don't know our TV-system:
We have two parts:
- a private part, represented by RTL, Sat.1, ProSieben, Kabel.1, and so on.
- and a public part, represented by ARD, ZDF, Phoenix, Kinderkanal, Arte, 3sat.

and our public TV isn't ruled directly by politicans, it's quite independent, I would say, that FOX is more bush-ruled than the ARD is Merkel-ruled (there is no Schröder anymore in Germany).

The Weltspiegel is one of many programs on the ARD, and not the only program for reports from correspondents of foreign countries (we have most time correspondents from the US and other countries in our Tagesschau-News and Tagesthemen-Newsmagazine), and all the programs are working with other concepts.

And the concept of the Weltspiegel is, to report about phenomens of other countries in a informative and CRITICAL way. It's not a magazine for saying "Bush is the greatest person of all", not for bush-propaganda, but for viewing some problems in other countries, sometimes problems, which are not feeled problems for the inhabitants of that country, but the Weltspiegel has also the rule to warn before some things in other countries, for example to warn about too excessive using of "plastic surgery" like happened in some parts of the US.

And you don't think about the potence of this program: It's quite small. Only few people are watching the Weltspiegel in relation to some other programs, and these persons are mostly intelligent enough to reflect the seeing and to connect it in the mind with other knowledge.

Note from David: SaschaPascal, I have cut off your comment here, simply because your ramblings are way too long for this posting. Find a way to publish your ideas somewhere else, and I will link to it.

[neocon]

Chris, do you have a link about this?
This is something I was told two days ago (that many executed prisoners turned out to be innocent, I don't know what to believe, this is common knowledge here in Germany)
Thanks a lot

[Chris]

Hi Neocon,

The original paper that I was referencing was an analysis of the Bedau-Radelet paper. I thought that it was from "Policy Review" but I can't find a death penalty paper when I search the archives. I copied the following from http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#A.Innocence and it makes some of the same points that the original article did.

"The most significant study conducted to evaluate the evidence of the "innocent executed" is the Bedau-Radelet Study ("Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," 40, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/87). The study concluded that 23 innocent persons had been executed since 1900. However, the study's methodology was so flawed that at least 12 of those cases had no evidence of innocence and substantial evidence of guilt. Bedau & Radelet, both opponents, "consistently presented incomplete and misleading accounts of the evidence." (Markman, Stephen J. & Cassell, Paul G., "Protecting the Innocent: A Response to the Bedau-Radelet Study" 41, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/88). The remaining 11 cases represent 0.14% of the 7,800 executions which have taken place since 1900. And, there is, in fact, no proof that those 11 executed were innocent. In addition, the "innocents executed" group was extracted from a Bedau & Radelet imagined pool of 350 persons who were, supposedly, wrongly convicted of capital or "potentially" capital crimes. Not only were they at least 50% in error with their 23 "innocents executed" claim, but 211 of those 350 cases, or 60%, were not sentenced to death. Bedau and Radelet already knew that plea bargains, the juries, the evidence, the prosecutors, judicial review and/or the legal statutes had put these crimes in the "no capital punishment" category. Indeed, their claims of innocence, regarding the remaining 139 of those 350 cases, should be suspect, given this study’s poor level of accuracy. Calling their work misleading hardly does this "academic" study justice. Had a high school student presented such a report, where 50-60% of the material was either false or misleading, a grade of F would be a likely result.

Indeed, Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Markman finds that " . . . the Bedau-Radelet study is remarkable not (as retired Supreme Court Judge Harry Blackmun seems to believe) for demonstrating that mistakes involving the death penalty are common, but rather for demonstrating how uncommon they are . . . This study - the most thorough and painstaking analysis ever on the subject - fails to prove that a single such mistake has occurred in the United States during the twentieth century." Presumably, Bedau and Radelet would have selected the most compelling 23 cases of the innocent executed to prove their proposition. "Yet, in each of these cases, where there is a record to review, there are eyewitnesses, confessions, physical evidence and circumstantial evidence in support of the defendant’s guilt. Bedau has written elsewhere that it is ‘false sentimentality to argue that the death penalty ought to be abolished because of the abstract possibility that an innocent person might be executed when the record fails to disclose that such cases exist.’ . . . (T)he Bedau and Radelet study . . . speaks eloquently about the extraordinary rarity of error in capital punishment." ("Innocents on Death Row?", National Review, September 12, 1994).

Another significant oversight by that study was not differentiating between the risk of executing innocent persons before and after Furman v Georgia (1972). There is, in fact, no proof that an innocent has been executed since 1900. And the probability of such a tragedy occurring has been lowered significantly more since Furman. In the context that hundreds of thousands of innocents have been murdered or seriously injured, since 1900, by criminals improperly released by the U.S. criminal justice system (or not incarcerated at all!), the relevant question is: Is the risk of executing the innocent, however slight, worth the justifications for the death penalty - those being retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation, required punishment, deterrence, escalating punishments, religious mandates, cost savings, the moral imperative, just punishment and the saving of innocent lives?

Predictably, opponents still continue to fraudulently claim, even today*, that this study has proven that 23 "innocent" people have been executed, even though Bedau and Radelet, the authors of that study, conceded - in 1988 - that neither they nor any previous researchers have proved that any of those executed was innocent: "We agree with our critics that we have not proved these executed defendants to be innocent; we never claimed that we had." (41, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/1988). "

Hope this helps,

Chris

[Lou Kertesz]

Interesting blog ... always eye-opening to see how the USA is viewed outside of the country. Lou K - Los Angeles Plastic Surgery