Abused publishing power
Noteworthy: A coordinated publishing campaign turned the unspeakable spelling reform into an even more unspeakable way to fill the summer news slump. With such self-serving campaigns, the press discredits itself.
Column A concerted publishing campaign stylized the unspeakable spelling reform into an even more unspeakable summer slump filler. In the summertime, when there is little news, the media "discover" some topic year after year and blow it up into a sensation - be it the Loch Ness monster, the danger posed by fighting dogs or the East German flood disaster that overshadowed all other topics in the 2002 election year and contributed significantly to the outcome of the federal election. The only exciting thing, because it cannot be predicted, is what journalists or their whisperers, the PR strategists and media consultants, put on the agenda and then suck up for weeks on end.This year it was the spelling reform, first in Germany and then in Switzerland. In the spring, it seemed unthinkable that it would cause such a stir again - especially in view of all the other problems that people on both sides of the Rhine have to deal with. But then influential publishing houses such as Springer, Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung declared their return to the old spelling system and - together with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which had opposed the reform from the outset - staged an unprecedented media campaign to accompany it.
The Bild newspaper, for example, ran the headline "Away with the bad spelling reform" and claimed that the majority of Germans wanted to return to the old spelling. However, no representative survey was cited as evidence. Statements by football stars and other celebrities were sufficient, and it is doubtful whether they have ever mastered the old or the new spelling. For weeks, the FAZ filled its pages with reports and opinion pieces on the subject. An entire feuilleton page was given over to an article that used the example of China (!) to show how a failed spelling reform can be reversed without losing face.
Certainly, the spelling reform was and is the work of regulation-mad bureaucrats and politicians. On the other hand, the reorganization has only accelerated a process of erosion that seems almost unstoppable in modern societies anyway: that the binding nature of spelling rules is decreasing and uncertainty about spelling is increasing. Somehow, the bitter and belated resistance seems grotesque. According to publicist Ansgar Fürst, it resembles "the courage of a man who throws himself resolutely behind a moving train".
The protest also has an extremely questionable aspect. The unrestrained way in which publishers and their journalists make use of the concentrated power of published opinion as soon as their own interests are affected is annoying. This gives an idea of how unscrupulously television stations and publishers defend their positions when it is not just a matter of orthographic vested interests. So it is not so much this superfluous reform that is frightening as the audacity with which (executive) editorial offices - instead of concentrating on their role as "Merker" - bypass parliaments to make policy on their own behalf.
The true populist danger of the future does not come from the Le Pens, Finis, Schills or Möllemanns of this world, but from the media, warned journalist Roger de Weck some time ago. The hullabaloo surrounding the spelling reform in the summer of 2004 was not least a defeat for serious, detached journalism, which is careful to separate news from opinion. So it's high time we remembered a saying of the late "Tagesthemen" presenter Hajo Friedrichs
to remember: "A good journalist does not make common cause, not even with a good one."
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is a professor of journalism at the University of Lugano.
The Bild newspaper, for example, ran the headline "Away with the bad spelling reform" and claimed that the majority of Germans wanted to return to the old spelling. However, no representative survey was cited as evidence. Statements by football stars and other celebrities were sufficient, and it is doubtful whether they have ever mastered the old or the new spelling. For weeks, the FAZ filled its pages with reports and opinion pieces on the subject. An entire feuilleton page was given over to an article that used the example of China (!) to show how a failed spelling reform can be reversed without losing face.
Certainly, the spelling reform was and is the work of regulation-mad bureaucrats and politicians. On the other hand, the reorganization has only accelerated a process of erosion that seems almost unstoppable in modern societies anyway: that the binding nature of spelling rules is decreasing and uncertainty about spelling is increasing. Somehow, the bitter and belated resistance seems grotesque. According to publicist Ansgar Fürst, it resembles "the courage of a man who throws himself resolutely behind a moving train".
The protest also has an extremely questionable aspect. The unrestrained way in which publishers and their journalists make use of the concentrated power of published opinion as soon as their own interests are affected is annoying. This gives an idea of how unscrupulously television stations and publishers defend their positions when it is not just a matter of orthographic vested interests. So it is not so much this superfluous reform that is frightening as the audacity with which (executive) editorial offices - instead of concentrating on their role as "Merker" - bypass parliaments to make policy on their own behalf.
The true populist danger of the future does not come from the Le Pens, Finis, Schills or Möllemanns of this world, but from the media, warned journalist Roger de Weck some time ago. The hullabaloo surrounding the spelling reform in the summer of 2004 was not least a defeat for serious, detached journalism, which is careful to separate news from opinion. So it's high time we remembered a saying of the late "Tagesthemen" presenter Hajo Friedrichs
to remember: "A good journalist does not make common cause, not even with a good one."
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is a professor of journalism at the University of Lugano.
