The state parliamentary group and the regional association of the AfD in Bavaria have banned a reporter from Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) from all of their events. As the BR announced on Friday morning, the AfD parliamentary group leader in the state parliament, Katrin Ebner-Steiner, accused the journalist of having insulted her. He rejects the allegations, “the BR has no reason to doubt it,” it says in one Press release from the station. The BR expects “that the communication and house ban will be reversed immediately”.
“This is an attempt to massively hinder Bayerischer Rundfunk in its journalistic work. I see this as an attack on freedom of the press,” said Thomas Hinrichs, BR’s information director. He accuses the AfD of “damaging its reputation” and calls the house ban “unacceptable.” BR editor-in-chief Christian Nitsche points out that the excluded reporter researched, among other things, fantasies of subversion in internal AfD party chats. “One can assume that he should be silenced and his information network in the AfD should be destroyed,” said Nitsche.
When asked by the SZ, AfD regional leader Stephan Protschka confirmed the house ban – for the individual reporter, otherwise the BR is “always a welcome guest”. The complaint about an attack on press freedom is an attempt to “put the AfD in a bad light.” Apparently it’s actually about more than an alleged insult – namely unwanted reporting. Protschka points out that the state executive committee also decided to take the measure against the reporter because of the spread of “false information” and “incitement” to publish party and faction internal information.