Party political preferences in the news industry are therefore no mystery.
And this is where the normative power of facts comes into play: only those who feel committed to a red-green worldview are happy at ARD and ZDF, and at regional newspapers such as Spiegel or Stern. It is no wonder, then, that the 2024 journalist survey by the Technical University of Dortmund uncovered a political horror picture of the worst kind, to which the official scribes surveyed adhere.
There were 525 in total who not only conducted interviews between March 8 and June 14, but were also interviewed themselves. If there were a federal election now, 41 percent of them would vote for the Greens, 16 percent for the SPD and six percent for “The Left”. Since journalists from Focus and Springer outlets were apparently also among those surveyed, the CDU and CSU together accounted for eight percent and the FDP for three percent. The BSW [Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht] is stranded at one percent while the AfD does not even exist.
The German people have evidently been forced into a propaganda operation whose political one-sidedness has long since reached all-out war levels. They are no longer officially organized into propaganda silos, but march in step with the deafening red-green drum sound.
Differentiated reporting that reflects all facets of public opinion cannot be expected from this press.
For this propaganda operation, the normal population has been degraded to the target of self-serving messages. From the high throne of imagined moral superiority, the educators’ index finger proudly rises up while they fulfill their educational task towards the plebeians – hubristic and supremely arrogant.
Thus, in the penultimate US election in 2016, Germans were in for a surprise: 82 percent said in the ARD “Deutschlandtrend” that the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would win. A full nine percent put their money on Donald Trump – who ultimately won the election.
This year, in 2024, this could happen again. The ZDF Politbarometer has now published a survey that is almost identical to the one conducted by ARD in 2016. The results are also similar: 72 percent expect Kamala Harris to win the election, only 23 percent believe that Trump will move into the White House. The rest are undecided.
In US surveys, things look very different. Trump is now well ahead in some of the so-called “swing states” in particular.
Musk comments on the glaring bias
Tesla founder Elon Musk, who supports Trump, has also noticed this imbalance. He has an obvious explanation for it and wrote on X: “This is what happens when people are fed state propaganda” – a clear message to the German mainstream media, which is overwhelmingly left-wing.
The AfD has enjoyed an unprecedented political rise in recent years. A year ago, in October 2023, it was still polling at 23 percent. Since then, it has grown strongly and became the strongest political force in Thuringia. In the European elections in June, it even became the second strongest political force in Germany. In Central Germany, its approval ratings are currently around 30 percent.
This ranking is not reflected in German “quality media”. According to research by the independent portal “Apollo News”, the AfD is still the least likely of all parties represented in the Bundestag to be invited to the talk shows of ARD and ZDF.
Real hard figures tell the story: of the total of 367 politicians who have appeared on the public broadcasters’ talk shows since the beginning of 2024, the AfD provided a full eleven representatives – three percent. Politicians from established parties can look forward to invitations much more often, although, measured by election results and poll ratings, they are often well behind the AfD.
The CDU was the most strongly represented with around 31 percent, followed by the SPD with 26 percent. Then came the Greens with 16 percent despite the fact that the party has all but imploded at the polls. But even the Left, which was practically also pulverized in the recent state elections in central Germany, was invited to the TV talk shows almost twice as often as the AfD, with around five percent.
Even on topics that directly affect the AfD, AfD representatives are generally not given the opportunity to present their own positions. For example, on September 23, on the show “Hart aber Fair” – on the occasion of the elections in the eastern federal states – politicians from the CDU and SPD and BSW boss Sahra Wagenknecht were able to exchange views. The AfD was once again not invited.
Thanking the perp?
Thanks to this kind of grip on information, US President Joe Biden’s announcement at a joint press conference with Chancellor Scholz (SPD) in Washington on February 7, 2022 that in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, “there would be no more Nord Stream”, is unforgettable since Scholz did not bat an eye on hearing this threat.
When the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up on September 26, 2022, former Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski congratulated the US almost right away. He illustrated his gratitude with a photo of the site of the blown up pipelines in the Baltic Sea, where gas bubbles were emerging from the sea surface.
Sikorski also apparently had a fairly precise idea of who had blown up the pipelines. In February 2023, the renowned US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh also concluded in a comprehensive expert report that the attack had been commissioned in the White House.
In contrast, the German government still has no idea who was behind the attack, even if it ended Germany’s supply of cheap Russian gas in one fell swoop. Worse still: when President Biden recently paid what was probably his last visit to Germany, Federal President Steinmeier insisted on awarding him the Grand Cross of the Federal Order of Merit – for his alleged “services to German-American friendship” and the transatlantic alliance.
Scholz also hastened to call Biden a “friend” and to thank him for American “close and trusting cooperation”. The blown up Nord Stream pipeline was not mentioned at all.
Clearly the only salvation, if you haven’t already done so, is to cancel your subscription today and switch off the wretched TV!