star editor-in-chief
Has German politics sold out to Tesla? Gregor Peter Schmitz about the current star
The current star-Cover: Paris is going green! How the most beautiful city in the world is getting ready for the future – and what we can learn from it
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An exclusive research by star and RTL exposes environmental sins and labor rights violations at Tesla. Editor-in-chief Gregor Peter Schmitz takes a look at the new issue.
There needs to be a shake-up in Germany, that’s what everyone can agree on. When people look for high-ranking leaders, one name often comes up: Elon Musk. With his electric car manufacturer Tesla, he hasn’t just shaken the dominance of the traditional car industry, he has changed entire standards: faster, higher, further. That fascinates him too star, who published parts of a sensational Musk biography a few weeks ago. At the same time, however, this frightens many who ask themselves: Do we really want this, an American start-up mentality that has little to do with employees or quality assurance, but everything revolves around unit numbers and profit?
The answer probably lies in the middle: Tesla’s dynamism creates jobs and ensures progress. That’s why there was a lot of enthusiasm when the car manufacturer… Brandenburg opened a factory that was intended to create around 12,000 jobs. German politics removed all obstacles at Tesla’s pace, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz proudly stood at Musk’s side at the opening.
However, the dark side of the Tesla system in Brandenburg is now obvious, as research by almost a year has shown star and RTL News uncovers. My colleagues Valeria Bajaña Bilbao and Kim Lucia Ruoff did undercover research in the Tesla factory. Christian Esser, Manka Heise and Tina Kaiser have reconstructed numerous accidents at work and listed outrageous environmental sins. Using interviews and documents, they trace how doubters were ignored in the authorities – and how politicians looked the other way and even committed serious violations Occupational safety and health accepted environmental regulations.
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke admitted in front of the camera that he knew about the many accidents, but he was not Tesla’s press spokesman. And Chancellor Scholz completely ignored our reporters’ questions. You can read the entire research in star. You can see more about Tesla on Thursday at 10:35 p.m. on RTL. The documentary also marks the start of the new TV series “Star Investigative”.
The Murdoch legacy
For many, including me, “Citizen Kane” is one of the best films of all time. In it, Orson Welles tells the thinly veiled story of the unstoppable rise (and fall) of the unscrupulous media czar Randolph Hearst. Today, TV series count more than movies, and the “Citizen Kane” of this genre is called “Succession.” This series tells the thinly veiled story of the fall of the unscrupulous media czar Rupert Murdoch – and of his family, who are waiting for his legacy. Murdoch, founder of Fox News and therefore largely responsible for the division in American society, has now decided his successor at the age of 92: He is stepping down and his son Lachlan is taking over. He is considered even more right-wing than his father, which doesn’t bode well for US democracy. There are populists in Germany, both left and right, but fortunately there is no media czar who blatantly supports them. Anyone who reads the story of my colleagues Marc Etzold, Leonie Scheuble, Dagmar Seeland and Antony Loewenstein about the power of the Murdoch family will hope that this remains the case for a long time.
When I studied in Paris, I didn’t miss a single cliché: misquoting existentialists, drinking red wine on the Seine and then singing off-key, like “J’ai deux amours…”, one of which, of course, was always Paris. Our correspondent Andrea Ritter also knows that the most beautiful and endearing thing about Paris is that the city has not petrified into a museum, it has always reinvented itself and is now on the way to becoming a green metropolis. And that’s a reason to fall in love with Paris again – and perhaps to lovingly copy a few things about the design of our German cities.