German state television has been accused of editing in black clouds of smoke over a nuclear power station in a report on the ongoing energy crisis.
State-owned broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) has come under fire for an image used in a recent broadcast on the continued use of nuclear power in Germany, with many accusing the TV station of editing in black clouds in post over an image of a nuclear power station.
With an ongoing energy crisis partly brought about by the country’s climate crazy agenda causing havoc in the country, many are now calling for a planned decommissioning of the country’s remaining nuclear power stations — which are due to be turned off by the end of the year — to be halted in order to help alleviate the situation.
In a report on this question aired by ZDF however, according to an article published by Bild, the broadcaster appears to have edited in post an image of a nuclear power station to include black clouds, despite such stations naturally releasing only water vapour that takes the form of white clouds.
The image was both used within the broadcast, as well as a thumbnail for the broadcast on a number of online platforms such as Youtube.
The Bild report ponders whether the black clouds were added in order to make nuclear power — frequently seen as a boogeyman by climate warriors such as Greta Thunberg — appear more environmentally unfriendly. A remarkable admission given it tacitly states the broadcaster deliberately doctors images to provoke emotional responses in viewers.
ZDF have outright denied this, reportedly telling the publication — incredibly — that the dark cloud is instead there to reportedly represent the possibility of blackouts and overall instability within the energy grid.
The publicly owned broadcaster however has since replaced the thumbnail of its broadcast on Youtube with a different image of a power station, this time with correctly coloured white clouds.
While no doubt a strange occurrence on its own, perhaps the most bizarre element of this story is that this is reportedly not even the first time ZDF has been caught adding black smoke to an image of a nuclear power station.
The public broadcaster had in fact been previously caught out for a similar stunt in February of this year, with a spokesman for the organisation reportedly claiming that a darkening layer had been added to the image to make text added to it easier to read.
“Unfortunately, this level was incorrectly positioned,” the spokesman reportedly said, in reference to the fact that the black smoke seemingly added to the image was not even located behind the added text.