Davids Medienkritik

Tagesspiegel: "Distorted Perception?"

Joerg of Atlantic Review points to another interesting snippet from German media - a picture on the front cover (top center) of Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily newspaper from Friday with the headline: "Distorted Perception?":

The caption reads: "US President George W. Bush reminded war weary Americans to hold on in Iraq. In a speech on Wednesday in Kansas City, he said that it was about an ideological struggle in the Gulf state as in the Second World War and Vietnam. The speech was met with outraged rejection by Democrats and ex-military. They declared that the only real lesson from Vietnam was that a change of course had to be immediately implemented in Iraq. (Page 5 and editorial page)"

Here - as in an earlier SPIEGEL ONLINE piece - it is clearly implied that the voices of a few ex-military (most notably John Johns) represent the broader consensus among ex-military in the United States. Predictably, the Tagesspiegel caption completely fails to mention that a heated debate is raging over Iraq (and the most recent Vietnam comparison) in which many voices - including those of Democrats, ex-military and left-of-center intellectuals - support the surge, see success as a real possibility with sustained commitment in Iraq, and reject calls for imminent withdrawal.

Unfortunately yet predictably, neither the caption above - nor the articles that accompany it - offer anything but a one-sided - (you might say "distorted") - picture of the heated debate currently underway. The paper makes little, if any, mention of support for the surge and opposition to rapid withdrawal.

As is so often the case, Tagesspiegel seems more interested in reinforcing its readership's Hate-Bush, Hate-America tendencies than offering them an honest, objective overview of the diverse political scene in the United States. This type of media coverage - all too common in Germany - furthers the perverted, biased version of reality that has deeply encrusted itself in segments of the national consciousness. Many readers live in a world where Iraq is the worst disaster in human history. Nothing - by definition - can ever go right. As a result, any attempt to explain or report progress in Iraq (thereby breaking with four years of reporting nothing but failure, death, misery and defeat) requires shock therapy (as employed by Der Spiegel - "The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe.") or a continuance of total denial (until exposure to established fact makes that impossible). It seems that - for the time being - Tagesspiegel will remain on the path of total denial.

UPDATE: A commenter on Atlantic Review writes:

"This is nothing more but the violation of one of the fundamental principles of journalism in democracy: The separation of news and comment (opinion)."

Indeed. Of course this isn't the first time we've noticed this problem...

Endnote: This quote from the introduction of the book Uncouth Nation by Andrei Markovits hits the nail on the head:

"The West European media report almost nothing that they associate with America in a neutral, matter-of-fact manner. Most things engender a palpable tone of irritation, derision, annoyance, dismissal."

Bingo.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Another Smear Photo - Another Perversion of the Facts

(...Or the War over Vietnam and Historic Revisionism...)

Skimming the web - I came across this typical smear photo on SPIEGEL ONLINE. It is one of hundreds selected over the years by various members of the media to firmly reinforce the stereotype of Bush as the arrogant-stupid-religious-zealot:

Bush with cross in background: A popular motif at SPIEGEL...

Later I received an email from our reader Helian with the following observations on the SPIEGEL ONLINE article in question, entitled: "Bush's Vietnam Comparison Outrages Democrats and Ex-Military":

"According to the article...

Time for (another) Lecture - or - Germany Releases (another) Terrorist Killer of American Soldier

Joerg at Atlantic Review has more.

This time it is an RAF killer - last time a Hezbollah killer of another US service member. Of course the eternal apologists for all that is wrong with Germany will tell us we should "respect" German law. Sorry - no sale.

In other news, Joerg reports that Germany's travelers are being encouraged by their Foreign Ministry to lecture others on human rights abuses while abroad. This German habit of lecturing the rest of the world on virtually everything is growing extremely tiresome to many Americans (and others) - particularly since so little of the criticism is actually constructive or based on a full understanding of facts and circumstances. The credibility of Germany is further decimated by its Foreign Ministry when top diplomats attempt to deny that anti-Americanism exists in German media and society.

Perhaps Americans ought to respond to the endless barrage of stupid and predictable criticism by mentioning the release of the two murderers above and the outrageous epidemic of unthinking anti-Americanism in German media. The fundamental reason that Americans will never respond with the same intensity is because they generally view such lecturing as highly impolite and off-putting and often don't care for the uninformed opinions of biased foreigners.

For what it's worth, here is our list of favorite "pet issues" of the German media in their coverage of the United States:

1. Perceived American religiosity and/or prudishness.
2. Perceived American obsession with guns and violence.
3. The death penalty.
4. The perceived excess and superficiality of American capitalism and (non)culture (i.e. fat people, the super rich, SUVs, fast-food, M-TV/hip-hop culture, Hollywood, corporate scandals, buy-outs and "excessive" profits.)
5. Perceived social inequality in the United States (i.e. amerikanische Verhaeltnisse, poor Americans are starving and freezing to death or at least struggling with 2-3 jobs and no health insurance while the rich live it up. Perception that America has no social safety net or a woefully inadequate social safety net.)
6. Perceived American unilateralism/exceptionalism (i.e. Iraq, Kyoto, ICC, Guantanamo)
7. Perceived American "hurrah" patriotism or "hyper" patriotism (i.e. flag-waving).
8. Perceived American paranoia/overreaction about terror and obsession with security and the "war" on terror and the perceived willingness of Americans to sacrifice key civil liberties (the Patriot Act has become a favored target) and take extrajudicial actions involving torture, renditions, etc.
9. The perception that the Bush administration controls (or at least dominates) the media and can somehow intimidate media into following the party line. The perceived view that there is a lack of diversity of opinion in US media and that FoxNews, talk radio and blogs are the menacing conservative vanguard of what all US media are becoming or have already become. (i.e. US media are "gleichgeschaltet" or in lock-step.)
10. Anything that casts a negative light on the US military (i.e. Abu Ghraib, trials of US troops, bombings or killings of civilians real or imagined).
11. Anything that casts a negative light on the Bush administration.
12. Iraq is a disaster-quagmire-catastrophe-debacle perhaps unparalleled in human history. Iraq = Vietnam = defeat and humiliation for America, the US military and Bush.
13. The perception of the US as an imperial hegemon out to expand its global power and military-industrial complex while using democracy as a convenient (yet false) excuse to do so. Oil = blood = Halliburton = war.

Interestingly enough - Stern's latest America correspondent - Jan Christoph Wiechmann - has already gotten off to a fast start. His first few articles are on problems with health insurance, the super rich and the sensational socialist extremes in New York City. He also dedicates a piece to defending Gerhard Schroeder and whines about a judgmental American professor (yeah as if there are no Americans who have not been through much worse with Europeans). Now all that's missing is a piece on guns, fast food, hyper patriotism or anything else that makes the United States look extreme, ugly or sensational to Stern's far-left Hate-America readership. We are sure Mr. Wiechmann won't disappoint us - he is welcome to use the list above for ideas.

On the Lighter Side: Germans in Simpsons Land

This is hilarious - the guy with the German flag shirt on the top bunk is especially funny - reminds me of members of the German media and disgruntled German taxi drivers:

Hattip: Joerg at Atlantic Review.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: "The US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

Historical consistency has never been a strong point for SPIEGEL magazine or SPIEGEL ONLINE - but this is shocking:

Just look at this article.

After years of calling Iraq a disaster, debacle and quagmire, SPIEGEL ONLINE has decided to declare the following:

"The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe."

This all stems from last week's Der SPIEGEL magazine cover feature article by Ullrich Fichtner: An enormous, fascinating and remarkably honest report on the complex situation in Iraq. (The first link above in bolded-italics leads to the English translation of that report.) SPIEGEL ONLINE is also publishing Fichtner's report that US troops are in a remarkably good mood and have high morale. That also flies directly in the face of past SPIEGEL reporting that consistently depicted US troops as demoralized, depressed, defeated, prone to suicide and suffering from low morale.

As a long-time observer of the publication, my first reaction to reading this on SPIEGEL ONLINE was: Are they on drugs?! - this directly contradicts everything they've reported for the past four years! My second reaction was: Have they finally gotten off the drugs?! Maybe reality is finally starting to sink in!

Keep in mind that less than a year ago, Der SPIEGEL published a magazine cover (depicted below) declaring Iraq a "Lost War".

Power and Lies: George W. Bush and the Lost War in Iraq

Is this abrupt about-face cynical hedging - or a genuine (and extremely sudden) change of heart? We would speculate that SPIEGEL editors have finally reached the realization that the version of reality they have painstakingly crafted for the German public since the conflict began - one of failure, disaster, debacle and quagmire for the Americans in Iraq - is no longer tenable when compared to the facts on the ground and will ultimately collapse on their heads like a flimsy house of cards. But with many American Democrats still in full irrational disaster-mode on Iraq (despite obvious recent improvement with the surge) this seems a somewhat unusual and perhaps premature move. Only time will tell...

This much we can say: For once - SPIEGEL has truly done something unpredictable in terms of its USA and Iraq coverage.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson offers outstanding analysis that may - at least in part - explain what is going on at SPIEGEL. Excerpt:

"Yet the universal human desire to be associated in the here and now with the assumed winning side — and to shun perceived defeat — trumps them all. Throughout this war, that natural urge explains most of the volatile and shifting views of our politicians, pundits and media as they scramble to readjust to the up-and-down daily news from Iraq.

And so it is with the latest positioning about the surge that to a variety of observers seems successful — at least for now."

Read the whole thing. (Via Instapundit)

Confessions of a European Media Insider

This is an absolutely fascinating must-read that goes to the heart of the split between media elites and the rest of society.  Much - if not all - of this work applies to media in both Europe and the United States. Much of this article also gives readers a broader contextual understanding of the fundamental anti-Americanism that plagues European media. (Hattip - Buckeye Abroad)

Email to Davids Medienkritik: American living in Austria

Here is an email we received this week from a reader:

"First of all, thank you for your website. I have just discovered it through the anti-anti-americanism blog. I´m an American (Texan, to be exact) who has been living in Austria for the past 7 years. Anyone doing the math will quickly see that I´ve been living overseas as long as George W. Bush has been in office, unfortunately for me. In moving to Austria, I never once thought that I would have to spend so much time and energy defending my country to so many ignorant Europeans. As a teacher of English, I come into contact with a lot of different business people and a lot of anti-Americanism. I can´t even begin to list the crazy questions that I have been asked. Coming from Texas means, of course, that I have to explain that, no, I don´t own a gun and never have and that, no, I didn´t vote for Mr. Bush (as Texans we were, amazingly, under no obligation to vote for him). Just in the past week I had to get on my soapbox twice, telling everyone what a wonderful country the USA really is, and that during my yoga class and at a dinner party of all things! I am very fortunate to have a supportive Austrian boyfriend who actually loves the USA and (almost) all that it stands for. It is so difficult, however, for many other people to separate politics and the decisions of the current administration from everything else. I often find that the people who have the most resentment towards the USA and the mentality of Americans are those people who have never even stepped foot in the country and only have information from movies and the media. It´s been a difficult fight, but as I told an acquaintance the other day, “I have no more energy to defend my country to you. I just have to hope that my behavior speaks for itself and that one day you will remember me as a positive representative of the US.”

I am relieved to learn that I am not the only one suffering from anti-Americanism in this region and look forward to reading more on your website.

Kind Regards,

A.G."

To our reader: Just remember - you are not alone - there are a lot of Germans, Americans, Austrians and others around the world who share the same experiences and sentiments. Your behavior does speak for you - as does the behavior of those who condemn you and belittle you simply for being a citizen of the United States.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Collapse of the US Infrastructure"

It wasn't entirely unpredictable. When the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, we at Medienkritik realized it was only a matter of time before members of the German media would attempt to interpret the tragedy much as they interpreted the New York power outage several years ago: As a sign that America is in a state of total collapse and decay.

After the New York Power Outage, SPIEGEL Published this cover: World Power Without Power: Appearances and Reality in the USA (2003) - The Reaction to the Bridge Collapse has been Predictably Similar...

Well - we didn't have to wait long for the disingenuous sensationalism to materialize. SPIEGEL ONLINE's Marc Pitzke - the anti-American hack-of-hacks - quickly came out with a piece that headlines: "Collapse of the US Infrastructure." The article features a seven-part photo series entitled: "US Infrastructure: Decayed, Ailing, Defective."

Not only is this headline beyond constructive criticism - it is more of the same cynical bashing that we have grown accustomed to in German media. It is nothing more than the usual - cheap and arrogant - hatred that German media consumers keep slurping down and sucking up. Deep down people like Marc Pitzke want to prove to themselves - at a highly visceral, ideological level - that the American system of capitalism is inherently inferior to their own statist, socialist model. So any opportunity to claim that America is in a state of total decay and collapse is taken with great relish. (No - this has nothing to do with just reporting the plain facts.)

Little context and little desire to engage in constructive criticism have become the rule and not the exception in much of the German media coverage of the United States. Disgusting but true...

SPIEGEL magazine covers - 1997 to 2006. Representative of the magazine's "objective" coverage of the United States over the past decade...

Endnote: Ironically, Minnesota - the state responsible for maintaining the bridge - is (along with Vermont and Massachusetts) perhaps the most ideologically in tune with Europe in terms of favoring left-leaning social, political and economic policies. Nonetheless - the German media will certainly find some way to drum up the usual charge: This is all Bush's fault.

More "Constructive" Criticism of the US from the German Left

There has been a small uproar of late among German media and political elites about plans of the United States to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Israel and others to counter-balance the influence of Iran. Just yesterday, SPIEGEL ONLINE reported criticism coming from Germany's Social-Democrat (SPD) Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier. The day before, the same publication reported that the SPD's Karsten Voigt, the German government's "Coordinator for German-American Cooperation" was outraged by the proposed arms deal. 

Just more constructive criticism coming from America's concerned allies and friends?

Well, consider this: Mr. Voigt and Mr. Steinmeier were both key members of Gerhard Schroeder's government right up until he was voted out of office in 2005. In fact, Mr. Voigt held the very same job that he holds now. Interestingly enough, both Steinmeier and Voigt were remarkably silent when Chancellor Schroeder proposed lifting the EU's arms embargo on Communist China just two years ago. There was none of the impassioned talk of democracy or fear of arms races back then from either Voigt or Steinmeier. (Of course after Schroeder left office - and it became politically expedient to do so - Steinmeier changed course - but only after China made aggressive threats against Taiwan.)

So what - other than the fact that it is politically profitable to bash the United States and Bush - could be driving the Social Democrat's sudden barrage of vocal criticism?  Could this have anything to do with the fact that they are tanking in the polls and need something - anything - to grasp onto and rally the base?