A Weekend With Medienkritik

Ray D. is back at Medienkritik (“peerless critics of the German media” — The Weekly Standard), seemingly with a vengeance at Spiegel. From his recent post on the magazine’s new (paper) cover:

Some bloggers began to argue that “Der Spiegel” might actually be run by pro-American editors and young professional yuppies with no real left-wing axe to grind.

By “some bloggers” he means me, I’d guess. The post about pro-American editors (really a fact-check on Ray D’s ass regarding the editor of Spiegel Online, not Spiegel magazine) is here, and the remark about “young professional yuppies with no real left-wing axe to grind” is over here. (I objected to a specific reference to “activist Socialists.”) Just have a good read-through and see if Ray D. has characterized what at least one blogger meant with any serious accuracy or discriminating intelligence.

     posted 8 October 2006 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. What gets me about Medienkritik is how hypocritical they are. They complain about one-sided reporting in the German media, but they have no problem blocking or censoring comments on their blog that don’t follow their line of thinking.

    One of their last entries was about the Porsche CEO talking about poverty in the US. The first comment they got was a quote from a flawed heritage foundation study that was as long as the entire posting. I pointed out two problems with the study: comparing the average poor American’s living space with living spaces in London, Paris or Tokyo without even mentioning the costs. And, my favorite: poor children eating more meat and being heavier than “the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II”. As if a diet of cheap hamburgers is an indicator of wealth. My comment (six lines long) was deleted, because it went “astray from the core topic of the posting.” Comments about the differences between Kia and Porsche or some guy’s garage burning down were deemed appropriate, though.

    Or take the endnote to the posting you mention. RayD writes that Politkovskaya’s death won’t make German covers. I (against better judgment) post a link to signandsight.com and mention the fact that virtually all German newspapers featured Politkovskaya on the front page. My comment doesn’t even appear. I guess it was off topic again.

    It’s too bad, really, because they do have a large audience, and for some of them Medienkritik is the only source on German news. By posting the Spiegel cover, they can use it as a straw man: see, no German reports on Darfur or Politkovskaya. As if Der Spiegel is the only German news publication. Sorry for the long comment.

    — influx    Oct 9, 04:25 pm    #

  2. Yeah, that’s pretty damn wilfully biased. Come on Ray, let’s have some justifications. We’re waiting.

    — Bowleserised    Oct 9, 06:19 pm    #

  3. Right, and here is the start of Spiegel Online’s coverage of the Politkovskaya case (auf Deutsch), with 7 theories of why she might have died. Four related pieces run underneath it, and the only thing that keeps the whole package from being the top story on Monday is the North Korean bomb test. All of which happened too late for front-page treatment in the paper magazine; but Ray D leaves his American readers with the idea that Spiegel has lauded Woodward at the expense of Politkovskaya. If he was a real ombudsman he’d be fired.

    — Michael Scott Moore    Oct 9, 06:48 pm    #