Public TV in Germany has to fill 'air-time', so they go out and create various series which are geared to attract viewers. Some of these are built like a National Geographic series (mostly about nature and animals)....some are about some societal problem (drug abuse, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, poverty), and some just focus on regular people or their jobs/hobbies/passions.
So WDR (a regional public TV network under ARD)....went out over twenty years ago and developed this series called 'Menschen Hautnah', which basically means 'People Up Close'. The series has been on the air for more than 20 years. What the director of the series typically does....is go and assign stories to WDR journalists, and occasionally freelance people.
Do people watch Menschen Hautnah? It's best not to ask that question. Most youth-viewers (Germans under the age of 25 years old) will say they've never watched a single minute of it. I've probably watched two episodes in the past decade.
The show came up in the news today, in an odd way. Someone sat there and viewed a particular episode....then it occurred to them that they'd seen this particular couple featured.....on a prior episode, except they had different names. So they alerted the network, and they investigated. What WDR says now....is that there are three of these episodes made by this one free-lance guy....featuring the same couple, and each apparently true but with differing names involved.
Yes, a true report but three different sets of names.
In some way, it's amusing because you can assume the storyline told of all three episodes....was true. He didn't care if the names were true or fake.....he conveyed the theme to just entertain you.
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