Hans-Hermann Tiedje is not a page one name around Germany, but he is well known within the news media circles. He has an interesting history.
In the late 1960s.....he gave up on law school and got an journalist-intern position at the Hamburger Abendblatt. By 1975, he was an editor, and went to Bunte in the late 1980s...whre he was the deputy of the magazine.
He got into politics in the early 1990s, and did some tme as Helmet Kohl's aide. He bounced around with various jobs in 2000 to 2010....ending up with N24 for three years.
He's an expert on news and how it is formed/spread.
Today, he came out via Meedia.de and spoke of the negative Trump coverage sweeping Germany's news organizations. His chief criticism? "Catastrophic reporting of German journalists."
It's a long read (eight minute article) but Tiedje drives at the point that four out of every German journalists (his number) are left or left of center type of journalists. As he points out, and I readily agree....no German journalist can explain the Trump phenomenon existing in the US.
One of the more amusing episodes I noticed with public TV in Germany was a case in April where they'd retrieved a 10-to-15 year old wrestling theme video, and Trump had shown up for one WWE episode, and they (the German news geeks) choose to use a cartoon-like voice for the 30 second Trump-talk.
The other side of the coin? Rarely do Americans get some chit-chat from the big news media over Merkel and Germany. I hate to suggest it but 10-percent of Americans probably still classify things as West Germany and East Germany....being that far disconnected. With right-wing types....that track Merkel and Germany, big talk going to immigration problems and crime....so Merkel gets slammed and looks like a 'loser' with these folks.
One of the odd characteristics of the 1930s was a world news media that portrayed various 'other' leaders as incompetent or foolish. It laid a foundation for various relationships to fail, and chaos to follow. It doesn't matter if you talk over French, German, Brit, or American news media....it all came to same path.
So, if you have eight minutes....this interview of Tiedje on the site I noted above....is worth reading.
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