At Davos Donald Trump talked about the fake news put out by the lying press, which responded by faking (or more precisely, exaggerating) the boos from the audience directed at him.

Many thanks to Ava Lon and Egri Nök for translating this article from Stern:

Tagesschau boosted boos for Donald Trump

The boos should be heard clearly: The Tagesschau admits a tone change in a report about Donald Trump. Critics speak of an impermissible manipulation.

The ARD openly admits the change: at the end of a post about Donald Trump, which the Tagesschau published on Twitter, the sound level was turned up higher. The reason: Boos against the US president should be strengthened.

Trump spoke last Thursday at a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos about a “nasty, mean, vicious, fake press”, and for that he was booed by people who were present in the hall. But the boos weren’t loud enough for the newscast.

Tweet:

“(and it wasn’t until I became a politician that I realized how) nasty, mean, vicious, fake (the) press (can be)” is the original quote, so Tagesschau just excerpted the five words without context.

Tagesschau explains its approach

“Yes, we indeed increased the volume a bit in the end so that one can hear the boos. Only in doing so, we were able to reflect what our correspondents had reported on. The microphone recorded mainly Trump, and not so much of the crowd-noise in the hall,” the Tagesschau explained their approach in a Twitter message.

Tweet:

Yes, we indeed increased the volume a bit in the end so that one can hear the boos. Only in doing so, we were able to reflect what our correspondents had reported on. The microphone recorded mainly Trump, and not so much of the crowd-noise in the hall.

But critics accuse the ARD flagship of improper manipulation. “You know what? You confirm exactly what Trump accuses you all of,” a user commented on Tagesschau‘s procedure. Another joked: “But then you make the boos a little quieter at the next Merkel appearance. That’s how we know you and love you.”

The editor-in-chief of the Bild newspaper, Julian Reichelt, also sounded the charge and tweeted to the Tagesschau‘s boss: “The Tagesschau ‘help a little’ so that boos against Trump become louder and clearer. Clear crossing of boundaries for a news format, dear Kai Gniffke. And difficult to imagine you would have done the same had it been applause.

Tweet:

The @tagesschau “help a little” so that boos against Trump become louder and clearer. Clear crossing of boundaries for a news format, dear @KaiGniffke . Difficult to imagine you would have done the same had it been applause.

573 Retweets 1,301 Likes

Tagesschau‘s editor-in-chief responds to critics

Gniffke didn’t want to leave it at that. He spoke up on Saturday afternoon with a statement on the Tagesschau website. In his blog post the ARD editor-in-chief again justified the change in volume after the speech with the acoustics in the hall, and also pointed out that the change was made transparent.

“If a reporter conveys the information that the US President was booed, then he has to prove it, and that’s what this tone is, it’s the original sound from the hall, nothing was invented, nothing was suppressed or manipulated,” writes Gniffke, and draws parallels to print media: “By the way, newspapers also make comparisons when they enlarge image sections and may even mark them with a red circle — nobody would come up with the idea of calling this manipulation, but rather journalistic precision.”