The Power of Predictability — Dragging Luther into the Public Eye
Sometimes, when a story is of little interest to large parts of the general public, there is little to report and the subject is somewhat on the boring side anyway, the only news value you really need is predictability. One prime example of predictability working its magic would be the recent coverage of “Luther-Jahr” in Germany, marking 500 years of Protestantism and, specifically, the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions in the year 1517 in Wittenberg.
Now I am not going to contest the importance of this event for German culture. The media is certainly in their rights to commemorate important national events such as this, as these events take great part in forming a nation’s identity. But Christ, are they trying hard to make “Luther-Jahr” seem relevant right now. It started out with an inconspicuous segment in Tagesschau, then transformed into what felt like a day-long experiment by ARD to include Luther’s proverbs in every introductory sentence, a lengthy Tagesthemen segment (interview with head of Protestant church and all) and, this week, culminated in DER SPIEGEL (Nr. 48/26.11.2016) going completely bananas. Quoting every member of the clergy or historian with lovely official titles lending them respectability, they devoted a six-pager to Protestant influences in German culture — and what they found was a whopping EVERYTHING. Literally. From waste separation to the development of discount shops, the current state of the German book market, approaches to aesthetics and arts, famous writers and RAF terrorists, veganism, political theatre, typical German dinner, the role of our Bundespräsident and, my personal favourite, Angela Merkel’s style of attire.
No matter how important this event was historically, it’s not nearly as newsworthy as DER SPIEGEL is trying to make it out today. Tagesthemen’s report even touches on the fact that the importance of religious beliefs is ever declining, making it clear that few people are actually going to be touched by “Luther-Jahr”. The lack of public interest can also be seen in entertainment-driven private broadcasters (RTL, Pro 7, etc.) avoiding the subject like the bubonic plague. If there is one news value that, in my opinion, should never be lacking, then it is “meaningfulness” — and I have a hard time finding it here, especially on the scale DER SPIEGEL is trying to attribute to it. It all seems to be a bit contrived to now jump on this one jubilee date, demanding people to suddenly care, or start to re-examine their relationship to protestant values when there is no indicator that anybody feels inclined to do so. Still, I get it. If you have 500 years to prepare a topic, better make it count.
