Chaos days in Bern

 
Piero’s column on the rampage at the Ringier Press House, the media minister’s sympathy for the perpetrator as a victim, and Blocher’s “nyet” to Ueli Maurer’s SVP newspaper—the possible discontinuation of which our columnist already regrets. 
The newspapers once belonged to a publisher who was also an editor-in-chief and a member of the National Council. Back then, the world was in order and the media landscape was relatively intact. Historians will likely come to realize one day that the old media order came to an end with the Cold War. With it also began the rise of the SVP, which replaced Moscow—the lost enemy—with Brussels. Thanks to «Arena» and the SonntagsZeitung, we were treated to debates that were, in some cases, much freer but also more vitriolic, along with more sensationalism. The SVP has benefited from and accelerated media developments through its provocations—it is not the worst example illustrating the contradictions of this party. It lost its “culture war” (Switzerland during World War II) and the most important referendums (the UN, Schengen). It remains successful with its scapegoat campaigns. It gave us the columnist Mörgeli and Blocher as a Federal Councilor.
And ten days ago, she had promised a new newspaper. To console us over the possible loss of Blocher as a Federal Councilor. But the SVP clearly has nothing to offer in this election campaign other than scapegoats, conspiracy theories, and empty promises. And we had been looking forward to the new newspaper so much. The situation has become so heated, the political climate so unbearable, that the threat of an SVP newspaper seemed to us like a promise of a return to the good old days. But we won’t be getting a “Blocher Pravda.” He said so himself. The day after he was voted out, Ueli Maurer wanted to present the concept and get started right away. Hardly anyone has been more publicly disavowed by their ungrateful friends. Blocher probably just wanted to demonstrate how indispensable Blocher TV is. He’d likely have to do without it in the opposition.
We’d prefer a newspaper straight from the SVP’s kitchen. Because we urgently need a replacement for the *Blick*. Piero showed us just how far things have come when he tried to drive his mother’s Mercedes right through the glass door into the newsroom. In the Wemf survey, *Blick* lost another 15,000 copies. No lawsuit, no campaign. Sex and scandals don’t cut it anymore either. The editorial staff is desperately searching for new concepts. But the fact that satire and tabloid journalism don’t mix was already preached by Übersax back in the good old days of the Cold War. Meanwhile, in *Die Weltwoche*, he’s up in arms about the—literally—expensive crap of modern art. With him, the SVP could truly have produced a promising newspaper. Just like back when *Blick* was still raunchy and unscrupulously staged its campaigns for motorists and against asylum seekers. We actually prefer this kind of inflammatory rhetoric in the tabloids rather than in politics, which is another reason why we would have welcomed an SVP newspaper.
An SVP tabloid wouldn’t have just shown Moritz Leuenberger in his swim trunks—as the prudish *Blick* did back then—but would have stripped him bare—politically speaking. Our refined media minister has just revealed in a book just how much he struggles with cynicism and base instincts. His tragedy is that, unlike Blocher—about whom there are at least four new books—Leuenberger has to write his own books, and *Blick* isn’t interested in the philosopher, but rather in his swim trunks. Leuenberger still resents *Blick* for this. And that’s why he’s expressed sympathy for Piero’s reckless drive. Of course, he wouldn’t have driven himself—he would have sent the chauffeur! Unlike *Blick*, a Federal Councilor is allowed to be satirical and even self-deprecating.
The publishing house, for its part, is so ashamed of what it has done to Piero, the media victim, that it isn’t even filing a lawsuit. The last tough guys who are cut out for the tabloids—and who, just as during the Cold War, know how to distinguish between perpetrators and victims—are probably really to be found in the SVP. And Blocher, like his party president Maurer, is so steadfast in his convictions that he, at least, won’t thank the rioters in Bern for their “election assistance” over the heated weekend.
 
 
Jürg Altwegg is the cultural correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Geneva.