Germany: WDR manipulates party ranking because the “wrong” party landed in first place

What does not fit is made to fit! With this crude manipulation, public-law science journalism reveals itself to be an election campaign aid.

The case: When the “wrong” party came first in a comparison of climate protection programs, the WDR magazine “Quarks” subsequently corrected its own evaluation and downgraded the winner by four places - in front of the camera!

“Climate protection: which party should I vote?” Was the title of the 20-minute contribution from Tuesday this week, in which the “Quarks” editorial team compared the election programs of the parties represented in the Bundestag on the subject of climate change.

The fact is that, of all things, the FDP landed at the top in the investigation of the WDR journalists clearly did not correspond to the worldview of the public-law “enlighteners”.

Result: In the middle of the article, the Liberals were downgraded from first to fifth place. The manipulation before the eyes of the audience was justified by the fact that there was not enough electricity available for the implementation of the FDP plan to tax CO2 in general and everywhere the same.

Argument of the "Quarks" editorial team: With the CO2 price demanded by the Lindner party for all forms of energy, coal-fired power plants would go offline "immediately"...

Hardly comprehensible, because: The WDR science editorial team did not make comparable feasibility considerations at any other party, so the table was changed completely arbitrarily.

And: A journalistically required demand for "Quarks" from the Liberals about what the party actually intends to do - nil.

In the end, from the point of view of the WDR journalists, everything was correct again, at least ideologically: The Left now led the climate ranking, the Greens followed in second place. The science magazine also changed the title of the article retrospectively without notice to viewers. Instead of "Which party should I vote?" It now says on YouTube: "What is which party planning?"

On Twitter, "Quarks" caused incomprehension and criticism with the manipulated ranking. The WDR has not yet commented on the incident.

Written by Georg Altrogge.

Source: BZ-Berlin