The New York Times had gone on a witch-hunt to oust the editor-in-chief of Europe's largest tabloid newspaper BILD. And they did! Julian Reichelt had to step down because of vague allegations of misconduct around women. There were little specifics. The reason - which I dropped from the video itself to keep its length at bay - was given as a supposed cover-up by other media professionals, notably the competing publisher 'Ippen.' Ippen had run an investigation searching for texts and indicators for misbehavior at the competitor's office. At the last minute the story was pulled. And for the German media and the New York Times (who broke the story anyway) this supposed "cover-up" is a major scandal. How can a story that apparently is about private, romantic relationships and not about Clintonesque groping or rape be without public interest when the accused party is a conservative? Scandal!
But the New York Times went a step further and scoured the earth to find incriminating material against Reichelt's boss at the time, the CEO of the Springer media corporation Mathias Döpfner. And they found another skin crawling scandal: a private text message in which Döpfner calls the current neo-Marxist atmosphere reminiscent to the fallen East German dictatorship! Scandal! The editors of the New York Times must have scratched their heads wondering how a man in a Western country can walk free despite offering his own views in private conversations! How dare he! He is German, but not Muslim-German, so he must be punished!
Magazine 'Übermedien' jumped in and asked all major news organizations that cooperated with Mathias Döpfner to give a statement about that evil, rebellious private text message. And sure enough, Mathias Döpfner caved in and wrote a show-trial-like statement to apologize for his privately held views, only shared in a private conversation, which he claims were misunderstood. I run you through the malice of his scary writing. We are heading towards Halloween. So be scared! Be very scared!
Fun note: I just noticed that Döpfner watered down his privately stated accusation of journalists being 'propaganda assistants' to 'PR assistants' in his public apology!
