You probably know the sentence: “You can tell a good journalist is that he doesn’t associate himself with something, not even with a good cause.” It comes from the TV legend Hanns Joachim Friedrichs. It’s a wise sentence. Still, it annoys me how predictably it falls most of the time. Journalists are not missionaries, nor are they activists, and we must be careful that we write what is, not what we want it to be. That doesn’t mean we don’t embody an attitude. Every day, journalists stand up for freedom of the press, that our democracy works, that we don’t hate strangers and that women and men have equal rights. We join forces with these things without coming across as activist.
And when up to 50,000 people die in an earthquake in Turkey and Syria, that touches you as a human being, and then we can write on the Stern title: “Yardım! – Help!”. If you want to be touched, read what our reporter Jonas Breng reports from the disaster area. If you want to help, please donate. Everything is needed.
Friedrich Merz had a dream that he had been waiting for almost his whole life to come true: to become chairman of the CDU people’s party. Nobody can deny him staying power, but integration qualities. He often seems more interested in his fans than stepping into the mainstream. He called Greta Thunberg “sick”, condemned “social tourism” and railed against elementary school students as “little pashas”. Merz fans are happy about that, but it frightens those who may think such debates are appropriate but don’t want to lead them in such a general way. In surveys, Merz is certified that he is not popular enough to be a candidate for chancellor, even many in his party see it that way.
When I met Merz, my colleagues Benedikt Becker and Nico Fried had the question in their luggage: “Why don’t the Germans like you?” Since Sunday evening, the answer has become even more complex. The Berlin CDU achieved a brilliant victory, also because they supported Merz’s tough “Pascha course”. Is that proof of popularity for Merz? Or does it show the limits of his legal course? Because nobody really wants to form a coalition with the CDU election winner.
Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer recorded a video they call a “Manifesto for Peace”. The point is that what is happening to the Ukrainians who were “brutally” attacked by Russia is bad. However, they should no longer be given weapons for defense under any circumstances. That’s right, then everything would be really good for Ukraine. The esteemed colleague Lara Fritzsche from the magazine of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” wrote that the video by Wagenknecht/Schwarzer was very funny without sound. More is nothing more to say.
