Note: Please feel free to view the subsequent rant as the mental effluent of an intellectually challenged basement blogger who frequently throw an old computer mouse, with the cable shortened for safety reasons, toward an imaginary lava lamp. Also note that the intellectual prowess needed to be a newspaper editor/publisher in Germany is no different than in the U.S.
The economic pressure faced by media who operate to make money is often advanced to explain shortcuts, lack of in depth reporting, and - since they all have web sites - bad spelling. The blogster knows a good deal about bad spelling, engaging in it more than it* would like and has to say: no, that's not an excuse.
The economic pressure argument is somewhat more plausible, self evident almost, until one gets to that most prized intellectual category that is the Publisher's Commentary (OpEd, or editor's comment in some countries). Largely a blog post length piece of writing, it commands the respect of readers and peers because a publisher or editor-in-chief is the unicorn of journalism. Well versed in history, geopolitics, and general wizardry, these gentleman connect the dots of objective journalism at the highest level.
And, we, the plebs, trained in looking up the ladder of hierarchy since early childhood, we see their smarts and their wisdom.
Despite the fact that anybody who knows a ladder will tell you what you really see looking up. One answer is "nothing". The other:
An ass.
Big or small, some sexy - if that's your thang - but asses nonetheless, and some of them with woefully inadequate sphincter control. **
Having implanted as gross image in your mind, the blogster will seque to a couple of respectable publishers.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, beloved by the blogster for its reprints of World War I reporting showing what people really thought and wrote back then plus the rare cool current affairs article, has a few editors and publishers it loves to dissect.
A gem from 2/2/2017 ostensibly deals with the question of a potential trade war under president Trump. It is decent enough for a comment, although German workers and the few remaining trade unions should pay very close attention to the suggested German remedy "above all better economic policies".
It is odd that you will find record company earnings across the board for German companies for almost each and every year since 2010 - just google - and still ask for better economic policies.
But that is not today's main issue. The final paragraph is***.
The fact that migrants can multiply their wealth by emigrating into a rich country produces an enormous incentive for migration.
By itself, this isn't all that bad. Although this was precisely why many Germans emigrated to the U.S. but even more poignantly why many Polish went to Germany's Ruhr area as miners only to find their children or grandchildren drafted into the Nazi army to go kill Poles. Not a word either on post WWII Germany's quest for migrants to rebuild that country. Not a word on how the displaced Germans got to Germany, the Franks (French) to France, the Spanish to Spain or the invitation of foreigners to Germany, be it Belgian farmers or French Huguenots.
Either displaced by wars or invited to multiply their wealth. So, he is talking about uninvited people, a nifty bourgeois version of "the boat is full".
As important as it is to help the poor countries build successful social security models, it is equally as important for the rich countries to protect their social security models. If the EU does not improve and better regulate migration, Europe puts its wealth and stability at risk.
There we go: lipstick on a pig.
When the blogster called the extra spending on the refugee influx an economic stimulus program, only the blog readers knew - but a year later, the media, including Frankfurter Allgemeine, used the term. The German population would have shrunk in 2016, had it not been for migrants. Popular resentment of migrants has many reasons - in the U.S. it is largely unadressed many decades old xenophobia, in Germany, much has to do with the fact that social services have been slashed and access made hard without having to do with migrants in the first place.
Our second example today is a piece in Zeit Online by one of its publishers. 1984, 2+2=5.
If you want to understand Trump, you need to understand Orwell's 1984, which, unfortunately, is out of print.
This piece is shorter and, unlike the FAX item, focuses on Trump and sticks very much with the 2=2+5 lede.
Why then skewer it?
Because it still manages to remain firmly inside the now solidified narrative that the bad guys are Trump and the likes of Putin and Orban, with a couple of old Nazis thrown in.
According to ZEIT, Trump is the poster child of postmodernism, "which also discards objective reality and puts the 'narrative' in its place".
This is a two fold problem for the blogster: first, because it believes that 'the narrative' is what counts, supported by facts or devoid of facts - only the narrative counts. If you want to get an idea of the concept, check out the series of free films at metanoia. Even if you disagree with much or all, you will understand the power of narrative.
Second, the blogster really does not want to be called a postmodernist.
The one sentence that destroys an otherwise cute OpEd is this:
Just about 26% of eligible voters voted for Trump.**** The other 74% must - will? - have to ensure that "alternative facts" don't win...
The problem with the "just 26%" is, of course, that this is a normal figure for American presidential elections. It is not even the lowest in the past 20 or so years.
It does not matter one bit that just about 25% voted for George Bush, or Bill Clinton, does it?
The other 75% did zilch in either case.
[Update 2/10/2017]
Found another one who makes the two examples discussed above look great.
We are adding several screenshots from the BILD chief. In the first one, he claims that the "Muslim Ban" is not a Muslim ban. In the second one, he accuses President Obama of letting Assad use weapons of mass destruction. The third is a retweet of WH birthday greetings. Because all lives matter, the BILD chief is a fan of humanitarian bombs and rather ignorant regarding the accomplishments of Mr. Reagan.
[Update 2/13/2017] One of the publishers of Frankfurter Allgemeine is back with a pretty atrocious "comment", flat out accusing the new candidate for chancellor of the Social Democrats of conducting a "Fake News Election campaign". In German, that's "Fake-News-Wahlkampf". The man has no problem pointing out that "inequality of income has not been growing since 2005" while utterly ignoring that income inequality is the smaller of the inequality issues (wealth inequality is the big deal) and leaving aside the infamous 2007 sales tax hike that hit poor people hard and was made to offset a tax cut for the rich.
* We are gender neutral, out of principle and also to piss off the intransigent binaries.
** To prevent any misunderstanding, this is generally not the result of bad potty training but a medical condition not to be made fun of. Although, as with other conditions, it may be hereditary. In that case, though shit.
*** Weil Migranten durch Auswanderung in ein reiches Land ihren Wohlstand vervielfachen können, entsteht ein enormer Anreiz zur Wanderung. So wichtig es ist, den armen Ländern dabei zu helfen, erfolgreiche Sozialmodelle aufzubauen, so wichtig ist es für die reichen Länder, ihre Sozialmodelle zu schützen. Wenn die EU die Migration nicht besser dosiert und steuert, setzt Europa seinen Wohlstand und die Stabilität aufs Spiel.
**** Gerade mal 26 Prozent aller Wahlberechtigten haben für Trump gestimmt.
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