Political dimension or public pressure? — The Tagesschau’s reason for finally reporting on the Freiburg- murder
The official statement of the Tagesschau’s executive editor Dr. Kai Kniffke concerning the news relevance of the murder of a young student in Freiburg is almost as controversial as the fact that the ARD did not report about the incident. Many people reacted to this blog with indignant and uncomprehending comments. Well, I for one have to admit that I can understand his argumentation that every news organisation has to decide which topics (regional or national affairs e.g.) they want to focus on since there is just too much happening in the world to be mentioned within 15 or 30 minutes. However, this is another aspect, which I am not going to explain further in this article. There is something else about this debate I found more interesting to discuss:
After having read Kniffkes statement, I actually expected that the discussion and indignation of the people would go on. What I did not expect was the fact that the ARD’s news programme would change its course just over night: On 5 December the Tagesthemen suddenly reported about the Freiburg- case! So, did no one care about the executive editor’s previous attempt to defend the Tagesschau’s philosophy of its coverage? Poor guy, he probably spent day and night to choose the right words for his justification on the internet. Well, I must say that in my opinion he did a good job in consequently conveying the impression that nothing will ever influence the Tagesschau’s constant attitude and evaluation of news. So, what happened within about 24 hours that made the Tagesthemen change its mind and to include the murder of the 19-year-old student in Freiburg in its show at 10:15 pm?
Of course, the Tagesschau, clever as it is, did not forget about Kniffke’s statement the night before and they were properly aware of the fact that they could not simply mess their principles up (and I am sure they did not want to). This is the reason why the Tagesthemen’s newsreader Ingo Zamperoni emphasised why they suddenly wanted to talk about the murder: „The reason why we are now reporting about it, is the political dimension the case has gained.“ In my opinion, seen as two separate statements, each justification (Kniffke’s and Zamperoni’s one) seems understandable and one cannot blame the Tagesthemen for not having explained this „political dimension” since they go further into detail in the report which followed: People use the fact that the suspect was identified as a young Afghan as a tool for their racist and populist agitation against refugees. I definitely condemn such behaviour and I really appreciate that the ARD showed interviews of people who do not share this xenophobic attitude. However, seen in the same context, the statements show some discrepancies:
Unfortunately, it is not surprising to me that after the publication of the suspect’s identity the case turned into another political debate about refugees. And to be honest, I am very sure that the Tagesschau was not surprised about it either. Thus, I do not understand why the executive editor Kniffke did not react to that development earlier in his statement. Why did he still hold to the fact that the Freiburg- case was of no relevance for the Tagesschau? I think he should have already mentioned at this point that, even though they had had their reasons for not reporting about it, meanwhile the political dimension has led to the decision to mention the murderer and the detention of a suspect in their imminent report (and I am sure Kniffke would have spared some of the upset comments).
Let us talk about the facts: On 3 December many news organisations reported about the suspect of the Freiburg-murder. One day later, on 4 December at 10:46 pm, Kniffke published his statement. The next evening, on 5 December, Ingo Zamperoni explained the reason for talking about the murder on the Tagesthemen. Thus, while Kniffke was writing his comment, the murder had already reached its political dimension (we all know how quickly racist comments spread nowadays). So,if the latter really would have been the (only) reason for the Tagesschau to start reporting about the case, why did Kniffke not mention it before? At this point, I suspect that something or someone else must have influenced the Tagesschau editors: Concerning the huge amount of viewers’ complaints which had reached the editors, it seems like the report on 5 December was simply a reaction to the public’s pressure and its influence on the Tagesschau’s reputation. Such an admission, of course, would have been disastrous for such a big news programme that wants to appear as a strong and unswayable instance which only follows its own rules and principles. Nevertheless, everyone knows that news media have to be popular to be successful. The Tagesschau probably saw this popularity endangered and they had to react.
Of course, this is only one way to see it. Others might argue that the Tagesschau or Kai Kniffke wanted to avoid influencing the reinforcement of the political and social unrest when it comes to the discussion about refugees. Even though we cannot definitely prove if any of these suspicions are right, since we simply do not know the real reason behind the Tagesschau’s (re)actions, I think it is a topic worth to be discussed.
