Heavy TV debate
Precht goes to “Lanz” Spiegel journalist Amann: “You didn’t understand what we were talking about”
There is no common denominator in “Lanz”: Richard David Precht and Melanie Amann.
Media criticism by Richard David Precht and Harald Welzer has been causing heated debates for days. Also the star reported big about it. With “Lanz” there was now a direct duel between critics and criticized.
How do I tell my audience? In discussing this question, the philosopher Richard David Precht and the sociologist Harald Welzer experienced a lesson on Wednesday evening with “Markus Lanz” on ZDF. The two authors are currently on everyone’s lips with their media criticism, which is expressed in detail in the book “The Fourth Power” – among media professionals and the public alike. Also the star reported in detail and dared to argue with the two.
On Wednesday, ZDF moderator Lanz dared the direct confrontation. He invited his podcast partner Precht and his co-author to a direct duel with journalists they specifically criticized – Melanie Amann from “Spiegel” and Robin Alexander from “Welt”. Nothing more than a round of talk show professionals, since all four are regular guests in the political talks on public television. And it was – as expected – a heated duel.
Richard David Precht: “You didn’t understand what we were talking about”
So heated that it eventually got personal. From the beginning of the discussion, Precht and Welzer expressed their astonishment at how their book, in which “the media” essentially contained the suppression of opinions, had been read by Amann and Alexander. “It’s not in there at all,” was probably the most frequently uttered sentence by Precht and Welzer, whose faces soon showed increasing incomprehension. “Spiegel” woman Amann repeatedly replied that the authors would have to reckon with the fact that readers would understand and interpret a text in their own way.
But the renowned Berlin journalist did not get through with that, especially with Precht. The prominent philosopher got personal: “It doesn’t say in the book that Twitter is the work of the devil. It just doesn’t say it,” Precht initially complained about, from his point of view, unjustified criticism. Then he goes straight to the journalist: “At first I thought it was on purpose. In the meantime I have the suspicion that you didn’t understand what we were talking about.” Amann grimaces, closes his eyes and shrugs. In Precht’s attempt to continue talking, the 44-year-old says with a sometimes sour, sometimes tediously amused expression: “It may be that it’s too complicated for me … it can be.” Precht then goes on to say that the personalization of debates on Twitter has found its way into the main media.
Elsewhere in the program, Amann had already pointed out that the times when Twitter postings were news in themselves are over – with the exception of statements by important politicians on current issues. Otherwise, social media are now the raw material for journalistic work.
Also read on this topic:
New book “The fourth power”: Precht and Welzer settle accounts with the media
Media suppress opinions? Dispute with Precht and Welzer
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The attempt in the program to prove to Precht and Welzer, who had been attacked by the criticism, that their accusation of suppressing positions, especially in relation to reporting on the Ukraine war, had feet of clay, failed. When “Welt” journalist Robin Alexander presented the two authors with four pieces from his newspaper critical of West and Ukraine, Precht dismissed them by pointing out that Alexander had found four suitable exceptions.
For their part, the authors largely failed to provide any evidence for their media-critical theses during the heated duel between humanities scholars and media professionals. had the day before the publicist Nils Minkmar in the media criticism portal “Über Medien” about the Precht-Welzer book already “regrets” that the two authors “didn’t have the time to research the editorial offices or consult a journalist”. Minkmar’s sigh was also quoted on “Lanz”: “If only Precht and Welzer had asked someone!”
Watch the complete “Markus Lanz” show in the ZDF media library