26. February 2009

The impeachment of the future of Nikolaus Brender as chief editor of the second German television (ZDF) cannot be called anything but an attack against the freedom of the press. As he is known to be one of those journalists that do not form a coalition with any of the politicians and as he is one of those journalists that hold up high the values of independent journalism, there can not be another reaction to the current attempt of conservative politicians trying to get Nikolaus Brender out of his office than pure shock.  

Roland Koch, prime minister in the state of Hesse from the conservative party CDU, stated in the German newspaper “FAZ” that he, as a member of the governing board of the ZDF, does not want to renew the contract with Nikolaus Brender because the quota of some of the programs of the ZDF had gone down in the last few years. As the ZDF is one of the two public TV channels, the quota should not be the crucial point at all. The ZDF, just as the other public television, ARD, is supposed to hold up the pure, independent and critical journalism. This kind of journalism might be unpopular and it might be inconvenient for politicians. But this is the journalism a real democracy needs and every politician therefore should encourage journalists to work in such a critical and independent way as Nikolaus Brender is. 

On the contrary, conservative politicians in Germany completely discourage this kind of journalism. Nevertheless 14 of the leading journalists of the ZDF, such as the anchorman Claus Kleber, wrote an open letter to the director of the ZDF asking to keep their chief editor Nikolaus Brender. In his interview with the “FAZ” Roland Koch replied to this stating that none of them actually did a favour to themselves with this action. This is widely understood as a warning, implying that their contracts might be on jeopardy as well. 

This behaviour is not acceptable in any way for someone claiming to be democratic. A quota really should not be the crucial point in journalism and it definitely should not be used to disguise actions taken to reduce the freedom of journalism. Even so the idea behind the fact that politicians are in the governing board of the public television companies might be democratic, as they are supposed to represent the public interest, the way those politicians are using their influence to actually intervene and influence the media in their favour is by no means tolerable.