German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's decision not to talk to the country's top-selling daily newspaper has fueled a press revolt, a major reversal for a leader who reportedly once said that the newspaper and television were just about all he needed to govern. Schroeder's retribution for the Bild newspaper's allegedly unfair reporting has united influential media against him with demands he treat the paper fairly. On Wednesday, a group representing the national press corps in the capital protested.
| Gerhard's on a roll in not doing anything right. |
Schroeder spokesman Bela Anda, himself a former Bild reporter and author of a sympathetic Schroeder biography, said last week that the chancellor would no longer talk to the paper because of its "mixture of malice, rabble-rousing, disdain for its subjects, and half-truths." That contrasts with Schroeder's early days, when his stylish, media-savvy presence provided a counterpoint to 16 years of the staid and steady Helmut Kohl.
| Perhaps there's something to be said for "staid and steady"? |
When he came into office in 1998, Schroeder actively courted certain journalists and was reported as saying he wanted to govern through television as well as Bild - known for its bright colors, screaming headlines and influence among Germany's blue-collar voters - and the paper's Bild am Sonntag Sunday edition. Schroeder has been less critical of the more feature-heavy Sunday edition. Schroeder has a record of suing newspapers for coverage he deemed unfair - once for reporting rumors of marital troubles, and once in a successful attempt to quash suggestions that he dyes his hair, a contention that gave fodder to political foes eager to portray Schroeder as more style than substance. "He's fighting the system that made him great," the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper commented this week.
Schroeder's move prompted a letter from editors of several major newspapers last week accusing the government of "putting the freedom of the press in question." "We'd never had that before in Germany," Wolfgang Stock, the head of the German media think tank Media Tenor told the Associated Press. Stock said the move comes across as an act of desperation for a leader whose approval rating has fallen drastically. Representatives of the national press corps in Berlin said it also raised allegations that Schroeder's press office explicitly barred Bild reporters from his international trips. Government spokesman Thomas Steg retorted that if some reporters have to stay home, it's only because there isn't enough space on the chancellor's plane. "No one is disinvited," he said.
"You! Off the plane!"
"Why, because I write for Bild?"
"No, because you eat too much sausage and we have to lighten the plane. Off!" |
But, he added, Schroeder won't start talking to Bild again. "It's beyond debate that he can decide whom he wants to talk to and whom he doesn't," Steg said.
| TGA may get his shot at being Chancellor after all! |
|