Last night, I watched the ARD (public TV of Germany), and they provided video of the Macron-Trump meeting.
My TV is set to a normal color pattern (at least I thought so).
What was portrayed? Trump in some shocking BRIGHT blue suit....ultra-blue, with a yellow tie. Yeah, it stood out.
So this morning, I'm reading and viewing newspapers (some French, some US, some German) on coverage, and they all have this picture of Trump and Macron. The suit.....just plain regular blue (what I would say is normal business suit blue).
Some ARD color filter? Well.....to suggest this would be saying something like 'fake-news'....but I've sat and viewed at least 20 fotos of the meeting from regular news coverage, and they all show some regular color, and NOT this ultra-blue color.
Just odd.
2 comments:
Our TV taxes hard at work. It was brought to my attention by a German friend, the head of each network are ultra left wing. So, no one is going to portray a Conservative leader in a good light. I remember the press saying that George Bush (Jr) couldn't read. If the German press told me the sky was blue, I'd have to look outside and see for myself.
It's never brought up....but in the early 1960s...Channel 2 (ZDF) did not exist. The CDU-CSU folks heavily criticized ARD (Channel 1). One day, the political folks had the votes, and mandated a 2nd channel to come about....outside of left-influence of ARD. They selected Mainz (the Pfalz region) to be the headquarters of this 2nd 'independent' channel.
Upon financing it and taking off.....ARD got peeved, and set lawyers upon this. In the Constitution, there existed a paragraph....saying ONLY ARD could provide TV to the German people. Constitutional Court reviewed the Constitution and eventually agreed. Rather than dismantle Channel 2....ARD consumed it (as a junior network under them). There probably were conservatives in the first hiring, but as the years progressed....ARD ensured supervision. So in the end, there were 2 leaning-left networks, instead of one.
This brings up the late 1980s...as commercial TV came about in Germany, and threatened ARD. They took RTL and SAT-1 to court....saying they could not deliver TV (using the same Constitutional paragraph). The commercial folks were smart in keeping the network outside of Germany, and using satellite technology. Eventually, the court told ARD to just shut up.....accept commercial TV, and manage their own empire.
Throughout the 1990s to now....it's been a competition thing, with ARD spending a ton of money on itself and ZDF (billions of Euro). The board (which the 16 states have influence over)....has finally targeted these raises in the tax as a problem. The board is refusing to allow a raise....pushing them (ARD/ZDF/radio) to 'reform' (cut budgets).
All of this is happening as fewer and fewer young people watch any of the public TV offerings. Streaming video (Netflix and associates) are killing the business model of ARD. They've tried to compete and it's yet to really achieve anything.
What I expect in five years....one of the news bureaus (either ZDF or ARD) will be purged, and one of the two will be pure entertainment....to save on costs.
On your George Bush story....at some point, there was a story that Chancellor Merkel had a meeting with the board, and they bluntly told ARD to lessen its criticism of Bus or face consequences. (meaning from the board, not from Merkel). Within days, whole attitude changed.
I'm not anti-public TV or pro-public TV....I just see it as a crappy business model....trying to do ten things to make people happy, and marginally delivering. It's mostly designed for Germans over the age of forty. If they ever lose the rights to soccer games....a lot of their 'power' (influence) will dissolve. One odd thing....US football has been delivered now via commercial TV, and it's gaining a big influence each season in Germany.
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