Media control in Germany

on
In Germany...





...the broadcasters and networks of major media












...all belong to the same, government-funded ARD family.









And what are the effects of this government-funded media monopoly?

Well just take a lake a look at this screenshot of the website for the ARD-owned news network, Deutsche Welle:






Let us have a closer look at the main contents of that page, reproduced below, as if one were scrolling downward (the page is longer than what is displayed above):





 All the world feels at home in Germany


Living in a multicultural society

German society is a society of immigrants. For economic, demographic and humanitarian reasons immigration has become an important issue for German society over the past 50 years: over 14 million people with a migration background are living in Germany today. They are immigrants themselves or second generation immigrants. One out of five marriages is a binational one and one out of four children born in Germany has at least one foreign parent. Every third teenager in West Germany has a migration background, while in some areas this rises to almost 40%, tendency increasing. Immigration has substantially changed the ways our society works – ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity have become a living reality for a long time already.





The Color Pink: No Longer Taboo

Germany's gay and lesbian community celebrates its big day in July at the annual Christopher Street Day parade. Thousands of gays and lesbians dress up in their most colorful clothes, or strip down to the bare minimum and dance through the streets of German cities watched by millions of spectators along the route and on television. For gay and lesbian people their sexuality's everyday normality. German government recognized gay marriages by giving same sex couples living together the same tax benefits as traditional married couples as evidence of that. In Hamburg alone there are some 60 cafés, bars and discos for gays and lesbians, and over 70 gay/lesbian groups from gay Alcoholics Anonymous to a gay Magic Circle. There are doctors, lawyers, hotels and shops catering specifically to a gay clientele. In Germany's unofficial gay capital, Cologne, the first gay youth club has been set up. Industry has discovered the "pink deutschmark" with advertising campaigns aimed at gay target groups that feature gay couples. Even television - which has tended to be a bastion of conservatism in gay matters - now has gay soaps. All this despite the fact that homosexuality was still illegal in Germany well into the 1970s.







The text focuses on the state of affairs in certain chosen locations (West Germany, Hamburg), gloatingly implying that what is the norm there is what Germany is about as a whole, which is to say, through tone and sample, whoever authored this wants all of Germany to be just like this.

Some news agencies are not part of the ARD network, such as the Hannoversche Allgemeine (HAZ).

But the HAZ offers a very interesting story itself, because it is controlled by the shareholder company Deutsche Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, which works closely with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).[1]






Perhaps that explains why the HAZ deletes responses to its articles if the responses criticize the views of the SPD:







The SPD wants a powerful, centralized government, more government surveillance, limits to free speech and a controlled internet. The party supports an expanding and increasingly more-powerful EU; it wants Turkey to join the EU and wants more migrants in Germany. In short, the SPD has the same goals as the rest of "the Left" (Links) - the only difference is the party is not overly aggressive about portraying these issues, and instead relies on winning votes by talking about wages, poverty and other things. But the two are practically identical.






HAZ is NOT an independent news source, and neither are the following media sources and publishing houses, which are under the Deutsche Druck-und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH's umbrella:




The following are partially owned by Deutsche Druck-und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH:



Share Button