SPIEGEL ONLINE: Regurgitated Attack Journalism as News

(By Ray D.)

Or the Media Manufactured Disaster that Wasn't...

SPIEGEL ONLINE is currently featuring an article on how the Rice visit to England has supposedly turned into a public relations "disaster." Despite protests and a few hitches in the schedule, very few other major media outlets have characterized the meetings between Condi and Jack Straw in such a negative tone. Upon closer analysis of the SPON piece, it is evident that the article is little more than a German translation of an AFP article (here's another version) accompanied by an opening summary hastily inserted to frame the content.

It would seem that SPIEGEL's editors intentionally selected the most negative piece on the Rice visit in the English-language media and simply had their staff translate and dress it up for the unsuspecting German audience. Voila! Dinner is served. Tonight's special is regurgitated English hackfleisch served in a fine German dumpfbacke sauce.

Here again, SPIEGEL is playing to the lowest common denominator, putting the most negative possible spin onto its coverage of the United States and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the magazine is either too lazy or too short on resources to offer its readers more than regurgitated polemic as news. Is this what the German public expects of one if its most esteemed news publications? Someone hand me the antacid...   

Comments

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

David, what's going on over there?

Youths are rioting in Berlin: Police brought in as teachers lose control at Berlin school. (Hat tip: WriterMom.)

Via LGF.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

I see some can dish it out but cannot take it, via Bros. Judd - an we're racist:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,409517,00.html

Player Silences German Racists With Hitler Salute

Mired in betting scandals, riven by infighting and alarmed by recent poor performances on the pitch, German soccer needs anything but more controversy in the few months remaining before it hosts the World Cup. But some recent cases of blatant racism are doing further damage to its image.

It started with a Hitler salute.....

Errr, no, it didn't. It ended w/the salute.

Typical SPON.

[Helian]

The bottom line must be hurting at SPIEGEL. After actually noticing for a change that there might be a few problems with "Wild-West Zustände" in Germany, such as, for example, in the educational landfills euphemistically referred to as "Hauptschulen," they've suddenly turned up the level of Amerika bashing again. If you actually read a few of the latest hit pieces, you can get a pretty accurate notion of the intellectual capacity of the bottom feeders who suck up this kind of "objective journalism."

Take, for example, today's SPON offering about a poor, old widow lady in Oklahoma, who, we are informed by the breathless blurb following the headline, is the latest tragic victim of "WildWest-Methoden." SPON is, of course, aware, that the eyeballs of its intellectually challenged regulars will quickly glaze over if they actually attempt to read any article past the first paragraph. It therefore conveniently bundles their daily doses of hate in the headline and opening banner. They typically bear little resemblance to the actual article, where the propaganda-meter is turned down to pianissimo. SPON must, after all, maintain the threadbare charade of "objective journalism."

For example, we read, "With her, the university bureaucrats bit on granite to the very end. The tough senior fought her way through the various halls of justice, all the way to the Congress in Washington, sometimes employing as many as four lawyers in the process. Her efforts were crowned with success. She couldn't prevent the loss of her land, but did achieve a "favorable agreement" that is quite impressive. The university paid a hefty compensation and agreed to move her houses. According to the compromise: the entire property of Cherry Jones, four houses, would be moved by heavy transport to the other end of town."

If SPON's hate consumers were actually capable of intelligent thought, it might occur to them that the American "WildWest" must have been somewhat different than the usual movie portrayals if the evil cattle barons had to lay aside their six guns and hire batteries of lawyers to steal the land of inoffensive farmers. They might wonder how a "senior pensioner" could, herself, afford the services of four lawyers. They might wonder how an anonymous citizen could force such an "agreeable compromise" on a wealthy, unscrupulous university. Why didn't the university just hire a few gunslingers to go plug the old lady? The editors of SPON know they needn't worry about such troublesome details. Once the hate junkies get their "Amerika is evil" message, the chances they will actually think about what they've read, or concern themselves with anything as novel as an alternative point of view, are vanishingly small.

[Oh Eric!]

SandyP: That story is full of obvious lies, which you can tell are lies from the internal contradictions in the story itself. I stand in awe at the intellectual laziness of it all.

For example, the opening headline, says he 'silenced' his critics with the hitler salute; later it says he was further attacked following the salute. Then it says it 'started' with the salute; followed by descriptions of the repeated abuse he put up with prior to his reaction.

I wonder, if this story had been about America, whether they would've put in the conciliatory paragraph with the flunky saying it had "nothing whatsoever to do with right wing extremism..." (although I object to the characterization of this behavior as 'right' wing). And of course, Ogungbure's response "They only want to wind you up." Which I wouldn't be surprised to find out was taken out of context, given that he was arrested for having the temerity to stand up for himself.

Sit for a minute and think about that. Ogungbure was arrested.

Yes, Spiegel covered a story critical of Germany, probably because sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "la la la, I can't hear you!" wasn't working in this isolated case. The hypocrisy was too ridiculous, even for them. But they still tried to spin it to make Germany look good. Just put in a few references to those racist Spanish and Italian teams, and all is well...because, uh, we Germans will make sure this is "punished". I ain't holdin' my breath.

[George M]

Helian,

This is what happens when the evil cattle ranchers, (In this case, mining companies), get a hold of your village in Germany:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kazil/etzweiler.html

"The town of Etzweiler is almost depopulated. It will disappear in 2006 when it will be swallowed by the encroaching strip mines."

[Helian]

@George M

>>"This is what happens when the evil cattle ranchers, (In this case, mining companies), get a hold of your village in Germany:"

Astounding! Thanks for the link. If what happened in Oklahoma, where Cherry Jones got a big cash settlement and her houses moved to boot, can be described as "WildWest-Methoden," then this is truly beyond description in either English or German. I won't hold my breath to read hand-wringing articles about it in SPIEGEL. They and the rest of the moral high-grounders declared jihad against nuclear power long ago. Anyone who tried to engage them in a reasonable debate on the relative advantages of nuclear and coal was immediately villified as an evil minion of the corporate moguls. The result is that Germany still relies heavily on coal today instead of nuclear. Nuclear power has its own significant environmental problems, but it is infinitely more benign than mining and burning coal. Still, SPIEGEL and the rest of the left continue their mindless, knee-jerk opposition to nuclear. Instead of serious debate on the relative environmental costs of nuclear and coal, we get fear mongering propaganda about Chernobyl. The total mortality caused by Chernobyl is dwarfed every year by the lung cancer deaths due to coal particulates alone, not to mention mining deaths, creation of environmental wastelands at Etzweiler and elsewhere, and the release of significant radiation into the atmosphere from the burning of coal, which contains 2 to 3 parts per million radioactive thorium and uranium. We will continue to hear occasional stories of high profile people dying of lung cancer, even though they never smoked. We can rely on SPIEGEL and the rest to fob these off as due to "unknown causes." We will hear little or nothing of the hundreds of thousands of other people who die every year due to lung cancer and other particulate-induced respiratory diseases resulting from the burning of coal. After all, these people are mere statistics. Pictures of child victims of Chernobyl are so much more emotionally satisfying. As always, the pose from the moral high ground is everything. The reality of mass death is nothing.