The Washington Post reported a new development in the media world. The influential and respected news site Politico was bought by a German billionaire who claims to be nonpartisan. But…
BERLIN — Months after his company bought Politico, Mathias Döpfner stood atop Axel Springer’s 19-story headquarters, gazing out at the double row of cobblestones that mark the outline of the demolished Berlin Wall, and explained his global ambitions. “We want to be the leading digital publisher in democracies around the world,” he said.
A newcomer to the community of billionaire media moguls, Döpfner is given to bold pronouncements and visionary prescriptions. He’s concerned that the American press has become too polarized — legacy brands like the New York Times and The Washington Post drifting to the left, in his view, while conservative media falls under the sway of Trumpian “alternative facts.” So in Politico, the fast-growing Beltway political journal, he sees a grand opportunity.
“We want to prove that being nonpartisan is actually the more successful positioning,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. He called it his “biggest and most contrarian bet.”
How exactly Döpfner, Axel Springer’s CEO, hopes to define nonpartisan journalism at an especially fragmented time for American politics is a question of intense interest as he aims to leave his mark on American media. His own politics have remained something of a mystery, too. But weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, he sent a surprising message to his closest executives, obtained by The Washington Post:
“Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Word of cautionâ¦I reside in Europe and know from experience that Germans are âloud and big mouthedâ, who know everything better. vg
Monarchy obscures the crimes of empire and wraps them in nostalgia. It exalts white supremacy and racial hierarchy. Chris Hedges (article in Consortium News)
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Unless we can re-establish something like a “Fairness Doctrine” for all major electronic media, I don’t see how our republic can recover. Newspapers are not read by the majority of folks; radio has moved to the Right. TV is splintered into multi-channels all just trying to get an audience–the usual way: “If it bleeds it leads.” Podcasting is very narrow casting, but growing–with seemingly no standards at all. Remember, people only know what they are told. With billionaires dominating the internet and TV, unions and socialists nowhere to be found in media, and public education being destroyed by privatization, mindless testing and teaching to digitalism, I’m almost in despair. Blogs like this keep us alive, but just barely.
The Overton window continues to be yanked to the right. Billionaires owning major media properties threatens true democracy and vigorous freedom of the press. Clearly their interests are in conflict. We need a “Fairness Doctrine” for the digital age that covers (and controls) all social media platforms which operate within US borders regardless of where they originate. Objective truth must be elevated and protected or we are lost.
Murdoch publications spout right leaning, far leaning Trumpian blather, NYT and WaPo speak to a progressive readership, Politico has always leaned conservative, the media, from the colonial times until today support one side or another, maybe the long gone Christian Science Monitor was neutral, Fox v MSNBC on the tube, we live in a politically polarized world …. and the poles are drifting further apart
I assume your definition of “speaking to a progressive readership” means not coming right out and saying that blatant Republican lies are true?
Because the NYT still gives the Republican lies the stamp of legitimacy with their “both sides equal” reporting.
Fox News and other right wing news organizations tell voters they should absolutely not believe anything the lying Democrats say because only the Republicans tell the truth.
The NYT tells readers that a Republican says this, a Democrat disagrees, and no journalist can ever figure out what is true.
The left media tells voters that both sides lie all the time.
Can’t imagine why so many people would believe a lie that some people tell them is absolutely, positively true, other people tell them “might be true or might not and no one knows”, and the far left tells them “both sides are untrustworthy, and you should definitely not trust those evil Democrats who say the Republicans are lying.”
There is a reason that the right wing likes to amplify voices on the left that tell folks not to trust anything the Democrats say.
The right wing want to make sure that anyone who would challenge their lies is portrayed as untrustworthy and a liar themselves, and the anti-Democrat left wing propaganda demonizing Democrats empowers the Republicans to lie even more.
Because the right wing can’t (yet) do what Putin does and simply lock up those who challenge their lies or have them meet with convenient accidents. The right wing needs to entirely discredit everyone who tries to call out their lies, and as I described above, that is how it is done. With Fox News calling them liars, the NYT saying they don’t know who is telling the truth, and the left calling them liars, too (albeit with the fine print that “both sides” lie).
Those who challenge right wing lies are like Cassandra — they are the ones who have NO credibility!! The liars have an entire right wing media saying that they are truth-tellers to give them credibility, and the truth-tellers have the media on “their side” saying either that no one knows if the other side is lying or not, or saying that they lie just as much as the Republicans so who knows what is true..
When the Republican far right is enshrined in power, they will have no use for the useful idiots on the far left anymore since they won’t need their help in demonizing the only people who challenged their lies since those folks who challenged their lies will no longer exist. And then they will come for the useful idiots on the far left, or more likely those cowards will toe the line and start spewing fascist rhetoric.
(Note, I’m not talking about truth-tellers like Bernie Sanders and AOC who will already be long gone, I’m talking about the “both sides equally evil” folks who claim to be on the far left who have been so complicit and necessary to the far right’s success in getting folks to believe that those who challenge the Republican lies are just as untrustworthy. I’m referring to those complicit folks who helped the far right demonize the Democrats who tried to challenge their lies.)
What has happened to the NYT is distressing. I get queasy just seeing a Gail Collins/Bret Stephens byline. Couldn’t possibly be enticed to read their drivel column after the first one. And CNN under Chris Licht will be a disaster. Wonder if Stephen Colbert will have the intellectual consistency to take down his former boss.
GregB,
I agree but just as distressing is when I read something like Peter Goodman’s comment because I know he is good and smart.
And yet, how propagandized is someone whose comment completely supports the view that both sides are equal.
The word “polarized” is itself ridiculous. Were the Nazis and Jews “polarized”? Were Nazis and Jews “drifting further apart”, or was one side – the Nazis – going full on far right by mile while the other side remaining the same or even went a bit to the right themselves??
If Peter Goodman is using words like “polarized” to describe the difference between those who believe in democracy and truth and those who don’t, then this country is probably already lost.
Sinclair Broadcasting is a propaganda machine. They have stories from their “national desk” that are always slanted toward conservative views. All their stations are running “crisis in the classroom” in support of all the bashing of public education.
Politico has NOT always leaned conservative. It has long been a source I trust, and it has run GREAT in-depth investigative pieces about the ugliness of Trump and his maladministration.
CSM gone? Then what am I reading in the CSM feed and in the weekly print magazine they send me?
Axel Springer Verlag is one the most significant media presence in Germany. The tabloid Bild (www.bild.de, be forewarned, think of the NY Post as NC17 in parts) is the top selling paper in Germany. It tends to be populist, virulently anti- anything they thinks has a taint of something less than right-of-center. But they also control Die Welt, considered to be one of Germany’s “serious” papers that embodies traditional conservative ideals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE
I confess to checking its home page weekly, especially for a quick overview of what the big, popular stories are. If I want more, I go elsewhere. The pics are usually good. And the soccer coverage is excellent. Overheard conversation in a restaurant/bar years ago as one friend observed another reading the Bild (true story): “How can you read that crap? Don’t you know that’s just full of sensationalism?” “Sure.” “What is there to believe in there?” “Well, the date is usually correct.”
When Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal, he promised that it would remain completely independent. Of course, what ACTUALLY happened is that it became an extremist rightwing rag.
It will be sad indeed to see Politico swing to the right. Still wondering what is going to happen to CNN after its being bought by the new Discovery/Warner Media entity.
CNN’s new leadership has already pushed commentators who spoke honestly about The Big Lie. One of my favorites, Brian Stelter, was one of them. Just telling the truth can cost your job.
This is all so troubling.
It looks as though the day is rapidly coming when it will be all rightwing stooge media all the time in the U.S.
Money talks, blathers, bloviates, cajoles, bribes, falsifies, and indoctrinates.
It’s already pretty damned close to that.
If Dopfner prayed for Trump’s reelection, I’d say he probably needs to find a new god to pray to because the one he has now either isn’t listening to him or doesn’t have any power to make things happen.
If he prayed to Jesus Christ. It would be the former, since there is not a chance on Heaven that Christ would want Trump in office again.
I wonder if Dopfner has tried praying to Satan.
Probably get more return on his investment.
Some years ago I had occasion to talk to a man who had maintained considerable clout (or so I was told) with Time. He boasted to me of their successful efforts to keep “communist sympathizers “ off the staff at Time during the beginning of the Cold War. What he said was chilling, and I told him I smacked of the people who would promote
Censorship, compromising democratic principles. His answer was both kind and condescending. He told me I argued my case well. It was obvious that I did not understand, being so young. Any suggestion that we have a “liberal” press makes me think of this conversation.
I’m not so quick to conclude that a CEO who encourages employees of a media company to pray for the re-election of the president who has been the biggest cash cow for media outlets tells us much about the CEO’s politics. It may say more about his tendency to admire money more than reason or good governance. But I would never accuse a media personality of knowing anything about governing.
Except the history associated with Axel Springer actually leads one to believe that it does inform us about Dopfner’s politics.
As a Jew, I especially love people who support racist, sexist, xenophobic fascists when they’re German and powerful. Awesome!
IKR?
Exit Politico, enter something else. The Nation. Mother Jones. Whatever is next. Either way