Column The lower their popularity rating sinks, the more politicians and managers take pleasure in media bashing. This bad habit is counterproductive in any case and is also damaging to democracy: the media are well-suited to being the joint culprits of society: television degenerates sexual morals, promotes the general brutalization of society and trains the young generation in insensitivity and inhumanity with its depictions of violence. This is how it has sounded from the very beginning of the medium's broadcast and was recently heard once again in a relevant Sunday speech by the German Federal President: At the moment, accusations are popular which place newspapers and magazines under the general suspicion of promoting disenchantment with politics. Their constant reporting on the scandals and failures of those who bear responsibility in government and business creates a socio-political climate of mistrust and contempt and thus destroys the civil conditions of any community. This is the accusation. The so-called campaign journalism, which they feel persecuted and threatened by, is considered particularly nasty by those affected. The red-green chaos combo in Berlin is currently intoning this old popular tune of self-appointed media victims with fervor.
Now one could simply shrug one's shoulders at the ritual recurrence of such accusations and get on with the business of the day. If Gerhard Schröder hadn't recently added to this: the Bild newspaper, which he still held in high regard when he took office - after all, his wife and government spokesman learned their journalism there - has recently ceased to be a discussion partner for him. The Chancellor has also called on the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag to put a stop to the riot paper in future. It is highly questionable whether Bild reporters will still be allowed to travel abroad.
Anyone who remembers will notice surprising parallels to the behavior of Schröder's predecessor. What the Bild newspaper was to him, the Spiegel was to Helmut Kohl, which he almost never gave an interview to and systematically boycotted. At the time, this refusal was seen as a further sign of the conservative Palatine's provincial, spitfire-like narrow-mindedness and his questionable relationship with the producers of publicity. Now his pseudo-left-wing successor, who had previously been celebrated as a cosmopolitan "media chancellor", is following suit.
We learn from this that it is not the political orientation that determines one's attitude towards the media, but only the office. No wonder, then, that Oskar Lafontaine, when he was still Minister President in Saarbrücken, complained about the "pig journalism" of those colleagues who had reported on his strange circle of acquaintances. It is a truism that cannot be repeated often enough, especially today: Politicians' and managers' outrage at the media is, nine times out of ten, always the outrage of people who have been caught not doing their job. However, instead of spitting in the mirror of their mishaps and failures, they should look into it. And what they can see there - in Germany recently again in the candidate wrestling before the election of the Federal President - should actually make it impossible for them to strike the offended pose of persecuted innocence.
Before simple theories of manipulation reassert themselves, it is important to remember that the media do not create moods and trends out of nothing, but merely process the material that is fermenting in a society into stories.
> Heribert Seifert is the media and culture correspondent of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Germany.
