Referreport
A explosive video leak from the Bavarian radio causes excitement. To see on it: Moderator Ursula Heller gives the then Bavarian Minister of Health Melanie Huml tips on how she can talk to data gaps in the Corona Warn app. In the meantime, industry services such as over -media also report on the case. The journalist Aya Velázquez, who was given the video and first released, writes in detail as a guest author for the Nordkurier.
The failure of the “fourth violence”, the media, is often mentioned as one of the main reasons why the Corona measures in Germany were so repressive compared to other countries and thus lasted astonishingly long. In recent decades, the relationship between the media and the rulers in Germany has changed fundamentally: renowned news portals, previously known and celebrated for their government-critical investigative research, prefers to work today than unofficial hobby government spokesman instead of critically questioning power. At a time when speed and clickbait come to quality, preceding complacency reporting helps to be the first to get first -handed information.
If there has already been enough indications of which dimensions the sticky proximity between the media and the rulers now accepted, another, explosive video evidence from the Bavarian radio has been leaked through, which shows the problem described as in a burning glass. The approximately eight -minute video neckline that was played over to me and which I am on February 01 on platform Xas well as published on YouTube, the moderator Ursula Heller shows in a conversation behind the scenes with the then Bavarian Minister of Health Melanie Huml. It is an interview pre-recording for the news format “Rundschau”.
“Don’t ask about the Corona Warn app”
It is July 10, 2020, in the middle of the first Corona summer. They are summer vacation – vacation time. Politics have concerns: whether the citizens also take the Corona measures seriously enough on summer vacation? The leaked video shows: Before the interview, there was a clear agreement between the moderator Ursula Heller and Minister of Health Melanie Huml in order to make the Corona Warn app look as good as possible despite the lack of data basis and to encourage many citizens to use them.
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The video initially begins with a cheerful, loose small talk between the Minister of Health Huml and moderator Heller. Huml praises how well the moderator Heller would have taken care of not being too close to her colleague in one of the last programs, whereupon Heller praises himself: “Yes, exemplary!”.
Ursula Heller now has a demand to the Minister of Health: from Julius Müller, the press spokesman Humls in the Bavarian Ministry of Health, she was not informed about the Corona Warn app. Heller points out that she would “honestly make herself totally unbelievable” if she Corona-Warn app “Completely out” – it is actually “in her (Ms. Humls) sense that people use it”.
“You can somehow talk yourself out”
The Minister of Health then explains that it is simply a matter of “not paying in this sense”, since the use of the app was voluntary. You would not know the numbers that the federal government would have. She suggests: “You could just say that I use it and I would like it if it did more”.
The moderator Heller does not seem to be completely satisfied with this answer – she hooks again: After all, it is about the current infection, “around the chain that was now going from Memmingen”. She suggests the Minister of Health: “Somehow you can talk yourself out and say that this is definitely beneficial and helpful when many people use it. Or whatever. “
The Minister of Health would then know from the moderator whether the Corona Warn app would already be mentioned in the one-player of the station, which will be released before the interview. Heller explains that the app would not appear directly, but “everyone wonders, it played a role”. She recommends that the Minister of Health “answer this with such a vague sentence, basically this is a good help and this case what do I know the health authorities …”. The Minister of Health smiles and says “we can get there”. “Great, wonderful!”, Considerator Heller is happy, thanks the minister – and the actual interview begins.
“Was that the truth?”
Moderator Ursula Heller: “We ask about Bavaria’s Minister of Health Melanie Huml. How did Ms. Huml, the tracking, the tracking of the infection chains work? Did the Corona Warn app also help? “
Minister of Health Melanie Huml: “In my eyes, it is important, this tracking, and that we are consistent, and that the health authorities also cooperate well and work together if there is a breakout that may not only refer to a district, but even over different to national borders, and in my eyes it worked well, as the health authorities also cooperated together, and the warning app naturally helps, that of course, that Recognizing the outbreak of a bit more, but above all it is very, very important that the health authorities here consistently understand the strategy of tracking. ”
After a few other, empty speech bubbles to the importance of the Corona measures, in which the moderator and Minister of Health harmoniously play the balls, Ursula Heller asks one last question about “Corona-proof summer vacation”. She would like to know from the minister what they would look like with the Huml family. The minister replies with a smile that they would “stay in Bavarian, but would be very happy to do so”.
“Friendly closeness between Minister of Health and BR moderator”
Wonderful, great, praises Ursula Heller after the end of the official interview on the end – and asks about the “local” vacation trip of the minister: “Was that the truth?”. It is so meaningful that this is the first question about the interview – so that a politician says the truth in a public interview does not seem to be a matter of course. The minister then confirms that they didn’t want to travel at all, but now they want to go to the Allgäu and the Upper Palatinate. “So exotic!” Ursula Heller jokes and adds that as a minister you also have a “role model function”. You would be happy for the next “controversial” show, a talk format in the BR, which is also moderated by Ursula Heller, about the minister’s vacation pictures: “Ms. Huml am …”. At this point the video recording breaks off.
In addition to the strikingly friendly proximity between Health Minister Huml and the Brender Heller, the leaked video excerpt shows as an example of how here was pulled together in order to use state corona measures- in this case of the Corona Warn app- even without any evidence a good certificate. A public law journalist is a PR agent for government measures instead of critically questioning them according to her actual task.
The Corona Warn app was a prestige project, which was developed under Angela Merkel, developed as a prestige project for containing the coronavirus, developed as part of a semi-state partnership (“public private partnership”). The app was published by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), in collaboration with the technology-giant SAP, Deutsche Telekom and around 25 other companies. From June 1, 2023, the app was transferred to a “rest mode” and has not been developed since then.
Corona warning app, masks and tests
The project had been sharply criticized for many reasons: there was too expensive, there were too many data protection concerns, and an effect regarding the containment of the infection could not be proven. All in all, the highly controversial project is considered failed today.
The exorbitant state expenditure during the Corona period has promoted Germany’s public debt to an extent to which in an unprecedented manner. In addition to overpriced mask, test and vaccine procurement, the Corona Warn app was only one of many swamps in which the tax millions of citizens and new, overpriced government bonds are seeped away.
The video stabbed from Bavarian Radio proves: The Corona Warn app was recommended to the citizens of politics and the media, although there was still no reliable data basis for their epidemiological sensitivity. The latter was both sides – both the moderator Ursula Heller from Bavarian Radio and Derdamaligen Bavarian Minister of Health Melanie Huml – as the preliminary arrangement behind the scenes proves.
Effectiveness of state measures does not question
Certain agreements in the run -up to a program to ensure a smooth process are of course completely legitimate and normal. However, the closeness, which is clear in this video, exceeds every healthy measure: instead of honestly communicating knowledge gaps in the evidence of a measure, they are concealed and covered. The moderator literally helps the minister to “talk out”. This is the opposite of the task of public service broadcasting: to inform citizens neutrally and objectively, and to critically question the effectiveness of state measures instead of praising politically wanted solutions. If you conclude from this video to the entire Corona reporting of the mass media, you will receive an approximate idea of the extent to which the press tangled with politics during the Corona years.
Since the leaked video was published on February 01, some portals such as the Think pages and also Over -media taken up the case. The moderator Ursula Heller and the Bavarian Radio have not yet commented on the video when asked. The authenticity of the video was not denied by the transmitter.
Source: German