2023-06-02 09:17:02
“The tone is gentle and authoritarian and leaves no room for doubt”
An average of 10.1 million people watch every day at 8 p.m. when “Tagesschau” spokeswoman Judith Rakers and her colleagues present the news
Source: pa/dpa/NDR/Thorsten Jander/NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk
The “Tagesschau” is like a “brief prayer in the living room chapel”: media scientist Hermann Rotermund criticizes the form of presentation of Germany’s most popular news program. The show is also unparalleled internationally.
Dhe media scientist Hermann Rotermund criticizes that the central forms of presentation of the “Tagesschau” in the first have hardly changed since the 1950s. Instead of explaining events or moderating the sequence of reports, the speakers read summaries of the events selected by the editors, Rotermund writes in an article for the epd news agency. “The tone is gentle, authoritarian and leaves no doubt that this is the way the world works.”
This form of news processing has almost a unique selling point in an international comparison, writes Rotermund. At the British BBC, the presenters are also recognizable as journalists and made offers to talk instead of acting as “announcers of unassailable truths”. The “Tagesschau” editors, on the other hand, apparently value avoiding dialogue: “The program gives the impression of a short prayer in the living room chapel.”
The media scientist complains that in many of the film contributions and speaker reports in the “Tagesschau” there is “hardly any independent research outside of institutional references”. Accordingly, the type of spokesman or actor of an organization appears above all. The image track illustrates the spoken texts and has no informative function of its own.
Due to the self-imposed format constraint, all events would ultimately be leveled. “Even real catastrophes can lose their horror through the processing saturated with stereotypes,” writes Rotermund. In particular, the standardized reports of the “Tagesschau” provided “confirmation of the tireless activities of the actors in the picture”. They conveyed the impression “that the world cannot be in complete disarray as long as these rituals work”.
The “Tagesschau” at 8 p.m. is the most-watched news program in Germany. In 2022, an average of 10.1 million people tuned in to the first, third and other programs. Responsible is the joint editorial office ARD-aktuell based at the NDR in Hamburg.
From 2004 to 2013, Rotermund was a professor of media studies at the Rheinische Fachhochschule in Cologne. From 2013 to 2015 he headed the Basic Supply 2.0 project at Leuphana University in Lüneburg. From 1996 to 1998 he was the project manager for “ARD.de” at ARD and from 1997 to 2000 he was responsible for the project management of the ARD online presence.
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