Media Credibility is Germany’s Biggest Covid Victim
Coverage of Spaziergänge (anti-mandate protests) has destroyed people’s faith in the news and caused lasting social damage.
Diana is a young mother who lives in a multigenerational house with her parents just outside of Ulm. Her family had always been extremely close which is why they chose to build that home together several years ago. In the summer of 2021 Diana joined a local ‘Spaziergang’ or COVID anti-vaccine mandate walk and since then her mother has not spoken to her. She read in the local press that these demonstrations were organised by the far-right and she is ashamed of Diana. Since Diana’s face appeared in the lead photo to a story about a walk in the area shortly after Christmas, her relationship with her mother has deteriorated beyond repair. Feelings between the two have grown so strained that Diana now spends her evenings looking at possible countries to which she, her husband and two young children might emigrate. Diana told me that the media coverage of these events has destroyed her family. Her story is just one of many.
Since anti-mandate walks exploded in popularity across Germany in December 2021, national and local media have, almost universally, taken a strong anti-demonstration stance. According to Diana and many of the walkers I have spoken to, the media have dehumanised them, divided communities and families irreparably, and are attempting to turn the vaccinated public against the unvaccinated. The walkers feel that the constant labelling of them as far-right and “Querdenker” (conspiracy theorists) is certain to lead to violence against them.
It would appear that media outlets are working hard to make this a reality in the Ulm area.
As I reported here, the people who walk in these protests represent every age group and social strata and the reasons why they walk are just as varied. Some march for their personal right to refuse to be vaccinated, some refuse to have their children vaccinated, others are fearful of long-term side effects and yet more are alarmed at how the government is riding roughshod over the State’s ‘grundsätze’ or state laws. There are young sports people afraid of myocarditis, school students who feel bullied by teachers, those who feel that the government and press are misleading the public and then there are the old and the socially isolated whose emotional and mental health have been badly impacted by the restrictions placed on their already meagre social lives.
However, to read press reports about these ‘Spaziergänger’ or walkers in the German media, one will not get a sense of who these people are or why they are out on the streets. Reporters have studiously avoided these two central questions, instead choosing to focus on peripheral aspects such as the legality of the walks and dissenting voices. In the process, the German media has forever tarnished its reputation in the eyes of many. I have walked with Spaziergänger in the Ulm region since Christmas and witnessed first-hand how local media misrepresentations of the walks have played a dangerous role in fomenting social unrest. Here are just some of the more egregious falsehoods I have observed.
Since the walks began politicians and media outlets have been referring to participants as far-right and conspiracy theorists. On January 3rd, ZDF, the state broadcaster, ran a story titled “Substantial fanaticism: Corona protests more and more frequent, more and more radical”. The article states that the protest walks have been hijacked by the far-right who are radicalising normal Germans. It claims that the entire Spaziergang movement is in fact driven by extremist actors. This narrative permeates national and local media. Countless sources have consistently referred to walkers as far-right, anti-semites, “Querdenker”, driven by hate and/or prone to violence.
I have observed this tactic of negatively blanket-labelling protesters at local protests. After a large demonstration in Ulm on the evening of the 10th of January, where participants conducted themselves impeccably, rather than report on the facts of the demonstration and those attending, Donau3FM chose to frame their coverage by focusing on the Mayor of Ulm, Gunter Czisch. They quote him saying that he “thinks that more and more of the Spaziergänge are undermined and used by anti-democratic forces.” No supporting evidence for this claim was presented by Czisch or by Donau3FM. As the case of Diana shows, this tactic of deflecting from the root causes of the walks and instead dismissing walkers as far-right or conspiracy theorists has already had devastating effects on countless normal, everyday people.
More alarming is the systematic manner in which the press distorts the reality of what is happening at these events going so far as to create their own facts and figures. On Friday the 14th of January more than 5000 walkers took to the streets of Ulm. Their behaviour, as usual, was beyond reproach. I spent the evening gathering stories from the walkers, finding out who they were and what they want. That evening a group of students and Antifa arranged a counter-demonstration at the point where the walk would start and finish — Ulm’s Münsterplatz. No more than 100 counter-protestors attended. I did a rough headcount. Obviously fuelled by media reports of a large far-right contingent among the walkers, they chanted “Nazis raus” and held up banners that called the walkers Nazis and conspiracy theorists. That evening, many of the walkers I spoke to didn’t even realise there had been a counter-demonstration, their numbers were so few. It seemed that despite the best efforts of the media to bring Antifa — and with it violence — onto the streets of Ulm, they had failed. However, over the coming days the media simply redoubled their efforts. Several news outlets, for example SüdwestPresse, gave significant and positive coverage to these few counter protesters while giving pride of place to their anti-Nazi signs in lead photos. It was a naked attempt to influence public opinion on the event.
That night there was no evidence of any far-right infiltration of the walk. Indeed, at all of the walks I have attended with these people, I have not witnessed any evidence of far-right actors. If a certain proportion of the crowd belongs to the far-right, they certainly do not advertise it. Walkers, who are often teachers, engineers, and yes, even police officers, laugh at being called far-right but it stings also. It is a slur and because of it the majority of walkers I have spoken to no longer trust local or national media.
The day after the 14th of January event, Donau3FM, the largest radio station in the region, reported that there had been “several hundred walkers” and “also several hundred counter-protestors”. Again, it was more than 5000 demonstrators and at best 100 counter-protesters. And again, their cover photo for the article gave pride of place to the counter-protestors holding their banners. The article spoke negatively of the walkers while giving positive coverage of the counter-protestors. Throughout, the reporter referred to ‘both camps’, as though they were equally represented and as though their reasons for being there had been to confront one another. The report spoke about how there had been a large police presence to keep both sides apart. They framed the story as two equal forces facing off, one good, one bad — with aggression expected from the walkers. The most blatantly false report on event however was found on Ulm-News which claimed that there were several hundred walkers and 800 hundred counter-protestors. In each of these cases, the wild misrepresentation of the numbers of people present is not a rounding error. It is an intentional obfuscation of the facts. In the eyes of the walkers, this isn’t simply biased reporting. It is propaganda.
Not to be outdone, the following week at a Monday walk, the Südwest Presse went so far as to tell their readers that there was twice as many counter-protestors as walkers at the demonstration that evening. They lead with a photo of the corralled counter-protestors and the — almost — empty walker section of the square. It looked impressive. A clear victory for the counter-demonstration except that further down the page, behind a paywall, the reporter clarified that the counter demonstrators outnumbered the walkers only while 2000 walkers were on their lap of the city leaving 200 behind. It was a preposterous framing of the events. The facts are that there were 2200 total walkers and only 400 counter-demonstrators yet the story claimed the counter-protestors were in the majority. That was the projected reality Südwest Presse readers consumed the following morning. Additionally, the number of walkers present was intentionally deflated and the number of counter-protestors inflated. Throughout the same report, the tone varied from sneering to menacing. At one point, the journalist wrote, “Darkly clad, they (the walkers) skulked through the city again dragging their kids and all, partially blocking off traffic.”
I have heard from some walkers that there are sympathetic local journalists. I spoke to one reporter who writes for the Schwäbische Zeitung. She is a very affable woman who would like to tell both sides of the Spaziergang story. I have seen her walk among the people, gathering their stories and hearing their concerns. Several walkers speak well of her. Her reports however make no mention of who these people are and what they want. I asked several walkers if this upsets them but the answer is always reflective; they know that even if she wants to report the reality of what is occurring at these events, she has to get her story past her editors. Judging from the articles, she hasn’t succeeded yet. Forcing good journalists to suppress facts is a scandal. Distorting the facts of what is happening on the ground at events angers walkers and deprives the public of the opportunity to develop informed opinions. But another issue with this kind of top-down overt editorialising is that it allows ideologues to feel emboldened in both their reporting and in their behaviour at demonstrations.
One particular female reporter for the Südwest Presse has become a prominent figure at walks in the Ulm region over the past weeks. On several occasions as I accompanied walkers in Ulm and its surroundings I witnessed her attempt to provoke participants. She would weave in and out through the crowd taking hundreds of photos, many of them close-ups. In one case only did I witness a walker confront her. An elderly lady that I was walking directly behind one evening politely asked the reporter to stop taking photos of her which the journalist provocatively dismissed: “I can do what I want”. She was extremely confrontational. At another event in Ulm I witnessed her stand between a McDonald’s and a department store — the narrowest bottleneck in the street as walkers concluded their event. She forced walkers to file awkwardly around her taking close-up photos as they passed. The threat was clear, walkers were meant to fear that their mugshot would appear on the front of their local newspaper leading to social ostracisation and even joblessness. It is a provocative, bullying tactic. If the walkers were as aggressive as the media states, she would have found the trouble she has been seeking for weeks. Her motivation is always to harass, intimidate and bully the crowd in hopes of getting a negative response for the following day’s headlines. I have heard countless stories of unprofessional encounters with this journalist. Despite her best efforts however, in my time with the walkers she has been unsuccessful in provoking a negative reaction. Sadly, in that same time she has caused irreparable damage to families and communities. It was this journalist who took the photo that drove the final wedge between Diana and her mother.
