This week, the NDR magazine “ZAPP” wanted to bring BILD’s critical journalism closer to lateral thinkers – and failed with its article on “Media in the Ahr Valley”.
Instead, the NDR report involuntarily put the SWR’s flood reporting in a strange light. The suspicion: has the suffering of the flood victims been censored?
In the “ZAPP” interview, SWR reporter Michael Lang admits that reactions and statements from those affected by the catastrophe of the century were systematically filtered: Camera, editor’s note) to protect people. “
The correspondent in the SWR regional office in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler about the reasons: “You have to admit to people (…) that they scold in their situation, that they cry, that they don’t understand.” This emotional state of emergency is “but not yet the one Beginning of the interview “…
Was it really about showing consideration for flood victims for the SWR? Or has the ARD broadcaster (Intendant: Ex- “Tagesschau” boss Kai Gniffke) deliberately withheld the true extent of desperation from viewers? Has the anger of the local residents been “dimmed down” in order to spare potential leaders in administration and politics?
A SWR spokeswoman on BILD’s request: “It is essential for us to be sensitive to our interview partners.” The accusation of having shown a “distorted picture” cannot be “understood”.
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