In a clear victory for free speech and democracy, a German high court has ruled that a legal political party cannot be denied its right to air an election advertisement on the public broadcasting circuit. Prior to the decision, the Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) television network had refused to air a certain political party's commercial. Helmut Reitze, the Director General of the network, had defended her position as follows:
Whether or not the party's commercial spreads "campaign messages that contain racist or inhuman ideology" is for the viewer to decide. The more important thing is that, like most television stations throughout Germany, HR is part a media group called the ARD. The ARD is, for all intents an purposes, a monopoly. It controls the following networks, as well as a number of joint projects and subsidiaries:
"The cause of freedom of expression and the parties' freedom to campaign cannot lead to public broadcasters being forced to spread campaign messages that contain racist or inhuman ideology."
Whether or not the party's commercial spreads "campaign messages that contain racist or inhuman ideology" is for the viewer to decide. The more important thing is that, like most television stations throughout Germany, HR is part a media group called the ARD. The ARD is, for all intents an purposes, a monopoly. It controls the following networks, as well as a number of joint projects and subsidiaries:
But the ARD's influence is different from that of the privately-owned web of media and communications control in the United States. Funding comes from an agency called the GEZ, which hires people to knock on every door across Germany that is believed to lead to a television-owning household until the residents pay a mandatory tax on - you guessed it - television-owning households. The number of televisions owned increases the tax.
As for the programming itself, the German system yields the same result as the American one: the select few have the opportunity to project their world view and opinions, and rarely outside of the status quo.
There are, of course, a few additional options when it comes to the German television circuit. But what is available in Germany is nearly identical to what is available in the US: a handful of stations that are controlled by the same basic media conglomerates. When the eyes and ears of the public are controlled by the same source with the same opinions, the people are incredibly vulnerable, for they are only seeing and hearing what the ruling regime or its ideological allies want to (or can afford to) show. For that reason, the court decision against the HR was a clear victory for freedom - the freedom of discourse and the freedom to use one's own eyes and ears to construct an opinion.
