Ole Skambraks is an employee of German public broadcasting. His latest essay also brands him as a heretic in the Church of Corona and a traitor to the Pandemic Narrative.
I can’t do it anymore
In an open letter, an ARD [German regional public broadcaster] employee is critical of one and a half years of Corona reporting: Ole Skambraks has been working as an editorial staff member and editor with public broadcasting for twelve years.
I can no longer be silent. I can no longer silently accept what has been going on for a year and a half at my employer, the public service broadcaster. In the statutes and state media treaties, things like “balance”, “social cohesion” and “diversity” are anchored in the reporting. The exact opposite is practiced. There is no real discourse and exchange in which all parts of society can find themselves included.
Right from the start, I was of the opinion that public service broadcasting should fill exactly this space: promoting dialogue between proponents and critics, between people who are afraid of the virus and people who are afraid of losing their fundamental rights, between vaccination advocates and skeptics. But for the past year and a half, the space for discussion has narrowed considerably.
Scientists who were respected in the time before Corona, who were given space in public discourse, are suddenly crazy, tinfoil-hat wearers or Covidiots. As a much-cited example, reference is made to Wolfgang Wodarg. He is a multiple specialist, epidemiologist and long-standing health politician. Until the Corona crisis, he was also on the board of Transparency International. In 2010, as chairman of the health committee in the Council of Europe, he exposed the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the swine flu pandemic. At that time he was able to express his opinion personally on public broadcasting, but since Corona this has not been possible anymore. So-called fact-checkers have taken his place and discredit him.
Crippling consensus
Instead of an open exchange of views, a “scientific consensus” was proclaimed, which must be defended. Anyone who doubts this and calls for a multidimensional perspective on the pandemic earns outrage and malice.
This pattern also works within the editorial offices. I haven’t been working on the daily news for a year and a half, which I’m very happy about. In my current position, I am not involved in decisions about which topics are to be featured and how. Here I am describing my perception from editorial conferences and an analysis of the reporting. For a long time I did not dare to step out of the role of the observer; the supposed consensus seemed too absolute and unanimous.
For a few months now, I’ve been venturing out onto the ice and making a critical comment here and there in conferences. This is often followed by a concerned silence, sometimes a “thank you for the suggestion” and sometimes an instruction as to why this is not so. Reporting has never emerged from this.
The result of one and a half years of Corona is a division in society that is second to none. Public broadcasting plays a major role in this. It fulfills its responsibility to build bridges between the camps and promote exchange less and less.
The argument is often made that the critics represent a small, negligible minority, to whom one should not give much space for reasons of proportionality. This should be refuted at the latest since the referendum in Switzerland on the Corona measures. Although there is no free exchange of opinions in the mass media either, the vote ended at just 60:40 for the government. Is it possible to speak of a small minority with 40% of the votes cast? It should also be mentioned that the Swiss government had linked the Corona aid payments to the vote, which may have influenced the decision of some to tick “Yes”.
The developments in this crisis are taking place on so many levels and affecting all parts of society so that right now we need not less, but more free space for debate.
What is revealing is not what is discussed on public broadcasting, but what goes unmentioned. There are many reasons for this, and it requires an honest internal analysis. The publications of the media scientist and former MDR Broadcasting [regional public broadcaster] Councilor Uwe Krüger can help, such as his book Mainstream — Why we no longer trust the media.
In any case, it takes some courage to swim against the current in conferences where topics are discussed and discussed. Often the one who can present his arguments most eloquently prevails; in case of doubt, the editorial management decides, of course. Very early on, the equation was that criticism of the government’s Corona rate belongs to the right-wing spectrum. Which editor dares to express a thought in this direction?
Open questions
The list of inconsistencies and unanswered questions that have not received substantial coverage is very large:
Why do we know so little about gain-of-function research (research into how viruses can be made more dangerous for humans)?
Why does the new Infection Protection Act state that the basic right to physical integrity and the inviolability of the home can from now on be restricted — regardless of an epidemic situation?
Why do people who have already had Covid-19 have to vaccinate again even though they are at least as well protected as people who have been vaccinated?
Why is “Event 201” and the global pandemic exercises in the run-up to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 not discussed or only in connection with conspiracy theories?[2]
Why was the internal paper from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, known to the media, not published in full, and discussed in public, in which it was demanded that authorities must achieve a “shock effect” in order to clarify the effects of the Corona pandemic on human society?
Why does Prof. Ioannidis’ study on the survival rate (99.41% among under 70-year-olds) not make it into a headline, but rather the fatally false projections by the Imperial College (Neil Ferguson predicted half a million Corona deaths in the UK and beyond in the spring of 2020 2 million in the U.S.)?
Why does an expert report prepared for the Federal Ministry of Health say that the occupancy rate of the hospitals in 2020 by Covid-19 patients was only 2%?
Why does Bremen have by far the highest incidence (113 on October 4th, 21) and at the same time by far the highest vaccination rate in Germany (79%)?
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