BERLIN -- The dirty little secret of German public broadcasting -- that politicians control the webs -- broke into the headlines this week when 14 heavyweight ZDF journalists signed an open letter to topper Markus Schaechter urging him to resist political efforts to fire news head Nikolaus Brender.
News anchor Claus Kleber headed the pubcaster's "Who's Who" in demanding that Schaechter take measures to stop "the dangerous interference of political parties that threaten to undermine our sovereignty...damage our credibility and compromise our independence."
They added in their letter, which was widely published in local newspapers, that efforts to thwart a contract extension for Brender being led by conservative Christian Democratic (CDU) politicians on ZDF's board, were "a serious attack on broadcasting freedom."
The board is ostensibly only in charge of overseeing ZDF's budget. But since ZDF creation in 1963, its board has indirectly wielded considerable power over programming and staffing decisions.
Brender, in charge of news for nine years, rubbed some politicians the wrong way for trying to resist that influence, according to ZDF insiders.
Wolfgang Clement, a former state premier in the Social Democrats (SPD), quit the board over the matter in 2002.
A former journalist, Clement said at the time: "You can't have government leaders who are the subject of critical media coverage controlling that medium at the same time. But that's what you've got at ZDF."
For decades, there was a careful balancing act that went on at ZDF and fellow pubcaster ARD to ensure an equal number of journalists who were members (or at least politically close) to the CDU and SPD were in key positions and Brender is credited with a fairly successful battle to reduce political influence at ZDF.
"They obviously want to have journalists who report want they want them to report and who could be useful in the next election campaign," said Michael Konkel, head of the German Assn. of Professional Journalists (DJV) and a member of a ZDF programming board. "The politicians are quite simply abusing the free press."
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