Minions of the great flood

Column From the storm disaster
not only the media benefited. Our state security officers were also pleased
by redirecting collective attention at the right time. For once, it's not just
metaphorically the water on your neck, and what do you see? Lots of happy
Faces. There is a strange relationship between nature and other
Disasters: People die, livelihoods are destroyed, the
The damage is enormous - and yet we long for the accident. It takes us for
for a moment (or a few days) from the pedal bike of the
Self-realization. He interrupts the hunt. He gives us a little
Piece of time back. The ice-cold invisible hand has hit "pause"
posed.
Now the guard fetches coffee for everyone. Sandbags are dragged across the
Lucerne's Schwanenplatz and cook for each other. A black
electricity market pulls its cables from the dry part of the city to the
wet. Boutique saleswomen on night watch pump the clothes store
and debate the meaning of life. Piera brings Luciano De
Crescenzo from his handbag and reads aloud. The baker with the high
Preisen is making plans for a commercial-free neighborhood festival: "That's allowed now.
not just be over."
Urs von Däniken ("Blocher's spies run amok") will also be pleased with the flood of
have been pleased. It drew attention away from his snooping state.
Cute word for the project: What the head of the domestic intelligence service
formulated with a freedom-killing energy, overrides all
personal rights. Before the rain released the man, he had
This briefly put his boss, Christoph Blocher, in need of an explanation.
At that time, something like the public still seemed to work.
But the topic went down the drain (not the cause,
Of course, state security officers are only trying to legally determine what
they have been doing for a long time). The usual excitement journalism did its work,
including the usual industry metaphor salad of flood and nature's revenge.
Tear-jerking and platitudes instead of contexts and enlightenment.
"Switzerland in distress - but where is our Federal Council?" asked Blick in
a cover story that clarified nothing, but nothing at all. The
Research capacities currently seem to be limited to a few excited quotes.
exhausted.
Blocher doesn't need to be asked twice. Thanks to the welfare freeze,
he said, fewer and fewer asylum seekers were leaving Switzerland.
haunt. ("No more Rolex here," says the tortured Kurd to the
mass-raped Congolese woman, "You'd better go to Portugal.") The
is, in the claimed causality, a gross untruth. Everywhere in
Europe, the number of asylum applications has been falling for years, regardless of the
asylum regime. Every reasonably knowledgeable person knows this fact
domestic editor. Nevertheless, Blocher's rose-tinted deception was unquestionably
reported. Even those media that give the right-wing minister little
They let the lie stand. Just as they told the
bizarre idea that von Däniken had carried out his attack on the
Democracy sent into office without Blocher's approval. But none
Fear not: when the opportunity arises, they will once again attack Blocher with terribly nasty
commentary, but this serves him twice over.
This is where the essence of publicity comes to light - and our problem
with this. If the media can broadcast and write without censorship, is that still possible?
no public. In advanced capitalism, anyone can
chatter all he likes. The public demands more: clear
Terminology. Knowledge. Contexts. Media that play their role in
Consciously perceive publication...
They rarely do that anymore. They prefer to report. Corporate PR,
Blocher PR, self-PR. Seen in this light, the growing number of
non-readers, media deniers and blogologists are unconsciously part of a
new media ecology movement. It would be better if they knew.

> Oliver Fahrni is a freelance journalist and media ecologist.