Is ZDF manipulating? When the applause comes noticeably often from the left

Berliner Zeitung Is ZDF manipulating? When the applause comes noticeably often from the left Max Florian Kühlem • 56 million • 4 minutes reading time The fact that the political coordinate system in Germany has become confused is now also reflected in the public media democracy. It used to be clear: ARD is more to the left, ZDF more to the right of center. This could even be seen in the projections of the election broadcasts, which mostly saw the SPD/Greens on ARD and the CDU/CSU and FDP somewhat further ahead on ZDF. The Second German Television was a comfortable channel for silverbacks who did not want to be disturbed by their conservative calm. This has obviously changed a lot. The current scandal involving viewers who clearly created a mood for left-wing votes on the election broadcast “Schlagabtausch” is just another indication of this. ZDF has long been home to Jan Böhmermann's raised index finger, his late-night show "Magazin Royale" has increasingly changed from a satirical format to a socially critical research platform. Böhmermann does indeed expose grievances, but by openly representing a left-liberal stance, using moralizing language and often crossing the line into hate speech from the left, he causes division rather than reconciliation. ZDF is also home to the immensely successful satirical format "heute show", which, with 2.4 million followers on Instagram alone, is also well represented on social media. The "heute show" has remained true to its satirical stance, and the contributions have become more aggressive and anarchic since the end of the Corona period. The fact that the moderator and editorial team clearly represent left-wing stances is also clearly evident here. On the subject of migration, however, Oliver Welke is more Wagenknecht-left. In the past, when parties to the right of the Christian Democrats were called the NPD or the Republicans, it was clear how to deal with their representatives: they were practically not invited to talk shows, and in election broadcasts they were interrupted as often as possible. "Don't give their theses a platform!" was the underlying strategy. Today, when a party to the right of the Union is polling at over 20 percent and the media landscape has become fragmented, that can no longer work. Right-wing populists create their own platforms. The new strategy could be to bring them into the discourse and let them reveal their own weaknesses. When AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was a guest on Caren Miosga's ARD talk show, that could have worked. In brief moments, you could see what would happen if you just let her talk: she keeps repeating the same slogans and actually has no detailed, coherent solutions to offer on any topic that do justice to the complexity of the current world situation. But in the minds of the current moderators, the imperative “Don’t provide a platform!” still seems to prevail. However, another one has been added: “Don’t make a martyr!” Pursuing both strategies at the same time is practically impossible and so incidents like the one with Caren Miosga occur, where Alice Weidel reacts stubbornly and grumpily to probing questions about her stance on the Holocaust or right-wing extremist statements by party members and probably even pleases her clientele, as if she were a martyr - according to the motto: “Yes, exactly, we are always put in the Nazi corner.” The ZDF program “How is Germany?” even fell into both traps: With a lot of speaking time, moderators and citizens connected to the program offered Alice Weidel a platform and Left Party leader Jan van Aken made her a martyr when he commented on one of the questions to her: “Are we getting anywhere with Nazi ideology now?” Weidel indignantly: “He just said Nazi!” At least there was no applause in this scene. It was different in the ZDF election program “Schlagabtausch”. Here, Left Party leader van Aken again played a special role. When he freaked out at AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla: "Now hold on to your right-wing side," the audience cheered. Before that, they had mainly cheered statements by van Aken and Green Party leader Felix Banaszak. ZDF capital correspondent Dominik Rzepka later admitted in an analysis that the audience was biased. This is reminiscent of a similar incident in the ARD debate show "The 100 - what moves Germany", where afterwards there was the accusation that the show had not made it transparent that many of the participants were politically involved with the SPD, the Greens or the party and thus naturally brought a certain bias into the debate. This is reminiscent of the survey that showed a few months ago that over 40 percent of German journalists would vote for the Greens. This is reminiscent of the ex-Tagesschau employee Alexander Teske’s exposé book “Inside Tagesschau”, which accuses the programme makers of misrepresenting news or claims.