How the FPÖ wanted to “clean out” the ORF

The FPÖ dreams of control over the media – how much, as shown by newly revealed chats from 2018 and 2019. Do they describe what can happen to public broadcasting in Austria after the parliamentary elections?

It was clearly more than “a drunken story”, as then FPÖ leader and Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache called it after that night in May 2019, in which the Ibiza video was also repeated on ORF in a continuous loop: the video , which cost Strache his post as vice-chancellor and kicked the right-wing populists out of the FPÖ-ÖVP coalition government under Sebastian Kurz. The video in which you could see and hear how the then FPÖ politician dreamed of a “media system like Orban” – television, radio and online firmly in the party’s grip.

Even before the “drunken story” there were many very sobering chats between Strache and his FPÖ party friends, in which very specific plans were made about how the public broadcaster ORF should be converted into a state broadcaster like in autocratic Hungary. At that time there was a WhatsApp group which – as the Viennese magazine “Falter” writes today – is “a kind of database of FPÖ media policy”.

It was saved on Strache’s smartphone confiscated after “Ibiza” and was evaluated by the Austrian economic and corruption prosecutor’s office. It was brought to light in a newly launched parliamentary committee of inquiry into “red-blue abuse of power”, initiated by the conservative ÖVP – blue is the FPÖ’s party color.

Old and yet current

The “database of the FPÖ media policy”, fed in 2018 and 2019, when the FPÖ co-governed Austria and was striving with all its might for a “media system like Orban”, seems strangely current: there is an election campaign in Austria, and a new one will be held in September Parliament elected.

The FPÖ has been leading the polls for a long time, is number one in the Sunday question, and is stable at around 30 percent. One of her favorite opponents in the election campaign: the public broadcaster ORF. With attacks like those from the dictionary of the WhatsApp database, which are now quoted everywhere in the Austrian media: “Clean out”, “We have to shoot them down”, “We finally have to hit the table”, “Fees gone”, it was said back then on ORF.

In contrast, what Dieter Bornemann, the chairman of the ORF editorial board, says about the “unpleasant moral image” sounds quite defensive: “These chats show how political parties, especially the FPÖ, want to destroy independent journalism.” They would demand a de-party politicization of the ORF, but at the same time, in background discussions, they were planning something completely different, namely putting their people in leading positions in order to “ruin the ORF.”

Some people involved are still active

The first attempt at this project was repelled in 2019 because vigilant journalists, especially from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, evaluated and published the Ibiza video. The FPÖ was then abruptly removed from the levers of power. But not all FPÖ participants from back then – like the Ibiza main actor HC Strache – have disappeared into political insignificance.

Harald Vilimsky, for example, is the FPÖ’s top candidate for the European Parliament election in June. At that time Vilimsky chatted:

To explain: ZIB 2 is the ORF’s main television news program, the abbreviation stands for “Zeit im Bild”, Martin Thür is one of the show’s interview-strong moderators, Alexander Wrabetz was ORF General Director at the time. ORF board member Norbert Steger from the FPÖ wrote about Armin Wolf, also a ZIB-2 presenter, in 2018: “…we have to push back.”

Elsewhere, writes the “Falter”, Vilimsky states after a conversation with the then media minister Gernot Blümel from the ÖVP: “It is intended to transfer the ORF’s fee financing to the federal budget.” It sounds as if the ÖVP coalition partner was also toying with the idea of ​​turning the ORF, which is now financed by budget contributions, into a state broadcaster paid for from the state treasury – like in Hungary.

Frustration over unsuccessful ones HR policy?

Vilimsky’s chat also speaks of frustration, because the ORF main news in particular stood for fearless journalism and continues to stand for fearless journalism, even though the TV editor-in-chief at the time, Matthias Schrom, was considered close to the FPÖ – he had also chatted and chatted with party members. When the end of 2022 came out, he resigned.

The FPÖ’s idea at the time was that friendly-minded journalists should contact them to promote their careers. One person who apparently did this was Strache’s fitness trainer Philipp Jelinek. Most Austrians know him from his ORF show “Fit with Philipp” as the nation’s TV pre-gymnast. According to “Der Standard” and “Falter”, Jelinek apparently wanted to moderate the ORF breakfast television. His chat with his gymnastics friend Strache is recorded: “Dear Heinz, the cake is now being distributed. We urgently need to set the course for me.”

Plans that amaze

But the FPÖ recognized other like-minded people in the ORF who, they say, had definitely not approached the FPÖ with career aspirations: Christian Wehrschütz, for example, a Balkan expert, a recognized foreign correspondent for many years, especially in the Russian Federation since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression Ukraine on the way.

In the late 1980s, Wehrschütz was once the editor-in-chief of an FPÖ newspaper, and was then brought to the ORF by the then ORF general director – deliberately as a southpaw. And so in March 2019, Strache was worried about Wehrschütz’s ORF career: “If Christian Wehrschütz cannot become Upper Austria’s regional director, then he would like to clear out the ORF as head of entertainment.”

A chat that surprises. Wehrschütz was once interested in the head position of the state studios in Salzburg or Linz. But the war-experienced warrior as ORF entertainment director? That has a certain entertainment value, writes the reputable daily newspaper “Der Standard”. Wehrschütz himself defends himself: “I only had an appointment with Mr. Strache once. That was because he wanted to know something about Ukraine – and that’s why.”

Tactics buried?

Was that it? The FPÖ was already taking a different course back then. “No more public attacks on ORF people. We have to shoot them down, not upgrade them,” wrote Strache after he ended a trial against ORF presenter Armin Wolf for insulting him with a donation in March 2018.

And the ORF journalists? Keep doing your job. Daniela Kraus, the general secretary of the Concordia press club, i.e. the Austrian journalists’ association, also attests to them: “We have a lot of very good journalists who work very professionally – and being too close to (the party) is the exception – and not the rule .” But she also says: “We need a protective wall against party political influence.”