A recent article by the media outlet Correctiv, which has been financially supported by the Greens, has been found to contain significant inaccuracies and a lack of substance. Despite this, the article sparked a months-long political campaign against the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Just in time for the new election term, Correctiv published a “research article” about Friedrich Merz, the “man of the large corporations” and his “lobby network”. This came shortly after Jeannette Gusko, co-managing director of Correctiv, joined the Greens.
On December 12, the ARD’s flagship news program, the Tagesschau, announced that the factions of the SPD, CDU, FDP and the Greens had agreed on a new election date of February 23, 2025. The next day, the Correctiv website announced personnel changes, the departure of a “democracy-strengthening” colleague. It states: “Gusko is leaving Correctiv on her own request to participate in the upcoming Bundestag election campaign of the Alliance 90/The Greens. The managing directors, the shareholder’s meeting and the supervisory board have agreed to terminate the cooperation with immediate effect.”
There is no rush with leisure, moving to new shores and thus automatically creating contact bridges between the Greens’ party headquarters in Berlin and the “PUBLIX Media House” in the auffällig Problembezirk Neukölln, the new Correctiv subsidiary, the “Journalist Center”. The head of Correctiv, one of the Untermieters in the “foundation-financed House for Journalism and Publicness”, thanked with a usual aalig and devot statement, declaring Publix to be the new “chocolate factory of journalism”.
CDU candidate Friedrich Merz recently marched to the forefront of “right-wing” demands on the topic of “asylum abuse”, well-known migration problems in the country, which, following the events in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg and and and. must now be tackled. Key phrase: 5-point plan.
The Union’s commotion, accompanied by migration hunt horn sounds from Bavaria, cost the absurd green ambitions on the Chancellor’s office, the goal of new government responsibility, important votes. What to do? Attack, but how?
Perhaps a phone call was made between two old colleagues, Gusko and Schraven: “You, I have a real problem, I need to score with Robert, Katrin and Annalena. No problem, Jeannette, we have something prepared, it was clear that a call would come soon. Ordered, delivered? A pure speculation. The reality of the article revealed itself at the beginning of the week under the Correctiv introduction:
“The BASF chemical company confirms for the first time previous mandates of the CDU candidate. Correctiv research shows which companies could profit from the proximity to Friedrich Merz after the election. The CDU election program already partially agrees with the demands of the chemical and metal industry.”
Unbelievable, lobbying in the Bundestag? What a brilliant and important research by the Correctiv team, satire off. The – assumed – request was, however, since the unknown commissioner: Just don’t mention in the very long research article anything about migration, remigration, asylum, or the like, the actual problem theme in the election campaign of the Greens, currently related to the person of Friedrich Merz.
The control shows, all the mentioned terms were not used once in the Merz article. This parallel to the after-verified purely campaign article against the AfD in January would have been too striking. This was passed on to the colleagues (m, w, d) of the Volksverpetzer editorial team. Ordered, delivered, on January 7 through the chief editor Laschyk personally:
“Merz’ Ausbürgerungs-Bluff goes backwards.”
It had to be avoided, however, that through corresponding article vocabulary and trigger words, Luisa Neubauer, SPD-affiliated trade unions, the Omas against the Right, Campact and other societal exclusion organizations from the Corona years and naturally, Katrin Göring-Eckardt for the Greens, would be summoned to the CDU’s party headquarters for nationwide demonstrations. No light process against “Merz-Hate and CDU-Hate”. The Merz main problem, along with the threat scenario for the country, actually means “lobbying” of an ex-BlackRock favorite in political Berlin.
The great media commotion, along with perception and rotation at ARD and ZDF, remains out this time. Why? The media portal Nius simply summarizes:
“A government-backed and partly government-financed medium publishes a story in the middle of the election campaign that could harm the election competitor of the still-ruling parties.”
That’s how it looks. But a Berlin Reichstag crow doesn’t hack the other colleague crow’s eye out. The Nius article reminds:
“In the year 2023, Correctiv received 198,500 euros from Greens politician Claudia Roth, who as Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media transferred this sum directly to the Bundeskanzleramt, which is directly under the responsibility of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). Similarly, it is characteristic that Correctiv in the years 2022 and 2023 received half a million euros from the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia, which was under the responsibility of Minister-President Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who in NRW governs in a coalition with the Greens. Wüst’s political course follows the left-green wing of the CDU.”
Furthermore, as mentioned, the former Correctiv democrat expert is now with the Greens. So, everything is just a lupenreiner lobbying in journalism à la Friedrich Merz? As a targeted and proven mist-grenade-wielder, Frau Dowideit from the Correctiv editorial team functions. Her statement on the “Spotlight” reads:
“Dear readers, again about Friedrich Merz – the man who has the greatest chances of becoming our new Chancellor. At the weekend, the CDU chief again caused a stir with his plan for an ‘asylum stop’. We will order the topic of the day, what it’s all about. By the way, he still hasn’t responded to our interview request – although tens of thousands of you have been poking the CDU and Merz in social networks. We’re still working on it.”
A research on the Correctiv website leads to the explanation of why, presumably, the theme of lobbying had to be used and not migration. So, Correctiv’s chief editor explains:
“Dear readers, in the Correctiv editorial team, we are currently emotionally discussing and it’s about Friedrich Merz. It’s about: Why do we want to scrutinize the CDU’s candidate and not, for example, SPD candidate Olaf Scholz? And why do we only focus on Merz’ positions on migration?”
So, the old lobbying-journalism problem “actually and unactually”. Further, it is apologetically stated:
“The reason is that Correctiv is not a media brand like the Süddeutsche Zeitung or the F.A.Z. We don’t form, like the ‘Full-Service Providers’ the complete news landscape. Instead, we concentrate on the themes that are politically the most important.”
And a theme like that is, allegedly, lobbying, not migration(?). To maintain credibility, the CDU press office was sent a “10 Questions to Merz-Mail” (Findable behind the link under the “Topic of the Day”).
“Ready, because you are”, was the green election slogan in the year 2021, for “A country that [then] simply [so la la] functioned [e].” It gets even more banal in February 2025, at the Greens:
The other established parties read no more excitingly. The 23rd of February will therefore be truly enlightening in only one thing: the final result of the AfD. Not related to the possible government option, but to whether certain “forces” (the evil “right” concept Deep State) can really play the Romania card; whether the Russian suddenly appears at the gates of the capital; whether Angela Merkel starts to scold and “reverses”; or whether perhaps an entirely unexpected, bizarre (democracy-) event presents itself.
A now no longer tolerable “public figure” knew two years after the so-called medial-politically titled “Wall Fall”:
“The whole life is a quiz and we are only the candidates.”
(