Editorial
stern Editor-in-Chief
Gregor Peter Schmitz on the current stern: “Without a strong railway we will not be able to turn the traffic around”
The current star-Cover: “Chaos Bahn: When will it finally get better?”
© star
Editor-in-Chief Gregor Peter Schmitz on the current star-Output: A gigantic investment program is waiting for the railways – and an alleged one star-Report causes a sensation in Russia.
Dear reader,
Being the head of Deutsche Bahn is comparable to being the coach of the national soccer team. It feels like there are more than 80 million Germans who know exactly how this job could be done better and are also happy to announce this loudly. The sympathy for Richard Lutz, current DB boss, can still be limited, after all, he is rewarded in football categories. But that’s where the comparison ends: because while the national team occasionally falters, it’s still reasonably high up in the rankings in Europe and the world. Deutsche Bahn, on the other hand, is often at the bottom of the international comparison in many disciplines, especially punctuality. Another reason for this is that politicians have repeatedly delayed investments in a modern route network. Now that should change, which of course should lead to even more train chaos. Company future, Deutsche Bahn – can the slogan still become reality? There really is no alternative to success. Without a strong railway, we will not be able to achieve the turnaround in transport, no matter how reluctantly those nostalgic about Germany, the nation of motorists, are to hear it.
Of course, Friedrich Merz also knows that nostalgia is not a business model, after all he is very proud of his experience in the private sector. However, this is not entirely true, because Merz would like to build on the people’s party poll values from the past, but he does not really succeed, which is why the grumbling about the chairman is getting louder in the CDU. Merz’ strategy is currently to present Germany as a huge restructuring case, which is of course the fault of the traffic light government. The fact that this does not bring him more approval in the polls is not due to nostalgia, but rather the opposite of that: many Germans have not forgotten that the Union had previously ruled in the chancellery for 16 years.
Alleged stern report on Budanov in a coma: “The story is nothing but a smooth fake”
The 1.3 million readers of Vladimir Solovyov’s Telegram channel, Vladimir Putin’s most vocal propagandist, may have been happy last Saturday morning: “Budanov in a coma – according to the German magazine star” was written there, above it a picture of Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR. Like him star reports that his journalists spoke anonymously to doctors at the hospital where Budanov was admitted. According to her, the head of the Ukrainian secret service has suffered brain damage from a head injury, and the prognosis is worrying.
The message with reference to the star can also be found on other popular Russian Telegram channels. There’s just one problem: The star did not publish any such message. My colleague and Russia expert Moritz Gathmann puts it: “The story is nothing more than an outright fake, another piece of false news that Russian propagandists are spreading. The idea behind it: Hardly any reader will bother to check whether on the side of star such a message can actually be found – quite apart from the fact that most Russians face a language barrier. Apparently, the fake news is part of a larger Russian disinformation campaign specifically targeting Budanov: The state news agency RIA Novosti reported that Budanov was seriously injured in a Russian rocket attack on Kiev on May 29 and taken to Berlin. What remains? This is further evidence of the primitive methods used by Russia, in conjunction with news agencies, powerful propagandists on the social network Telegram and fabricated ‘Western media reports’, to circulate fake news.”
The only thing that helps against such disinformation is information. Still, our correction was circulated in leading Russian newspapers. Apparently, journalism is not completely lost there.