DJV boss on the rbb crisis: “A unique process”

That the ARD the rbbmanagement withdraws trust is a “unique process”, says the chairman of the German Association of Journalists, Frank Überall in an interview tagesschau24. He now expects further resignations.

tagesschau24: How do you rate the distancing of the ARD– Chairman Buhrow?

Frank Everywhere: This is a unique process that we have never experienced before: that the working group of broadcasters in Germany, the ARD, distanced itself from one of its members. This is really unique. And it also shows the distress in which one is overall as ARD and public service broadcasting is now. I think it’s an attempt at liberation. And it’s up to now rbbwhether it actually succeeds.

“It must now be fully clarified”

tagesschau24: Now you can’t force anyone to resign. Should he rbb draw further personnel consequences?

All over: I don’t think they really have much else to do. We have seen that there is anger, that there is shame among colleagues, among journalists at the rbb. That has to stop. It must now be clarified comprehensively – we are on the right track.

But it has obviously been determined internally that this path is not yet being pursued energetically enough. The demand that is now in the air is not just a demand of the WDR-Intendants and acting ARDChairman Buhrow, but he specifically emphasized that all directors stand behind this appeal. That a member of the working group should then pull away and not follow him at all – I can’t, no, I don’t want to imagine that at all.

tagesschau24: No details are given in the statement by the directors. What do you think has gone wrong so far?

All over: It seems that this body of ARDdirectors only ever got news from the media. That one had expected that this clarification would also be made faster, more intensive and more trustworthy internally compared to the sister stations. This trust seems to be lost and a clear sign has now been set.

Wasn’t the legal scope clear to supervisory bodies?

tagesschau24: Let’s look again at one of the basic problems: there was obviously a failure of the control bodies, above all the board of directors. Was that due to the structure or to people, such as Wolf-Dieter Wolf?

All over: I think it is mainly due to people who may have been ignorant, but who may have acted intentionally and, above all, were very, very badly advised legally. Also the supervisory bodies.

You have to be aware that functionaries in public service broadcasting are so-called officials in the criminal sense. This means that they are subject to the strict penal provisions – for example in the case of corruption or breach of trust – as for civil servants. Whether I bribe a police officer or whether I bribe a director is the same under criminal law and is punished more severely than in the private sector.

There are many rules – in the free economy you can’t be guilty of accepting an advantage, i.e. without consideration and thus no clear bribery. This is only possible as an official. I don’t think that was on the agenda for the most part. Apparently they didn’t want to deal with it. A system may have taken on a life of its own, because we now see that it’s probably not just about allegations against the director herself. Otherwise one would have such a far-reaching demand for resignation ARD certainly not said now.

Everywhere: affair is also instrumentalized

tagesschau24: Is that just one rbb– or a ARD-Problem?

All over: I have no suspicions from any other institution of the ARD before or also other public broadcasters such as ZDF or Deutschlandradio. That really seems to be a personal, concrete issue here rbb-to be problem.

But yes, in order to ensure the long-term credibility of public service broadcasting, we have to ARD, create processes and structures throughout public broadcasting that are really beyond doubt. Because credibility is our greatest asset – we need credibility to make news programs, to report.

Interested parties are now exploiting this affair to damage public broadcasting. The allegations must therefore be clarified very quickly and very thoroughly and it must be avoided that something like this can happen again.