Solingen’s Lord Mayor Tim Kurzbach speaks of a “catastrophe in the night” with a view to the storm situation – there is no better way to summarize the television and radio programs of the WDR in the hours from Wednesday to Thursday. In Rhineland-Palatinate and, above all, North Rhine-Westphalia, sirens sound, there is a power cut, “Land and people”, otherwise the focus of every WDR program offensive, are under water, citizens go to the emergency shelters, looking for protection from the tidal waves . People die. The WDR, otherwise a reliable player when panning cameras over North Rhine-Westphalian dams, plays unperturbed moody music in the ARD Popnacht, after after all it has marked in its own radio news at one in the night that it is “about life and limb” in the reception area.
During the day it became clear that Wednesday night would be dangerous. The moderation duo of Current hour said dutifully, one looks “with concern into the night”. Subsequently, broadcasts with information about the “summer highlights” in the Münsterland ran undeterred. The WDR reported from 10.30 p.m. Not on TV, but via a rudimentarily updated text ticker on his website and in a few tweets.
Where’s Tom Buhrow?
Anyone looking for reliable, up-to-date news was better off looking at city channels and emergency services on social media. Or right at picture. The systems there had been started up early and the breaking muscles flexed on Thursday morning. If picture Opening its TV station next month in order to devote itself to precisely these catastrophes instead of columnist questions of all kinds, the systematic sluggishness of the WDR will attract even more attention. Too bad you can So the cultural program is currently being scaled down in Cologne.
Back to the crisis area. The Düsseldorf fire brigade, which was not under suspicion of alarmism, spoke of a “millennium flood”. So why doesn’t WDR change the program in such a case? The broadcaster, which is well equipped with PR, does not give an answer to this question. Vacation time. In March, WDR director and ARD chairman Tom Buhrow breathed in the FAZ Word clouds, under the mega headline “Where ARD will be in 2030”. Then somehow he went underground. But you really hear a lot from and about your station. Crisis broadcasts about yourself (“Gypsy Schnitzel” plus “Grandma / Environment Pig”) the WDR produces quite doggedly depending on the shock situation. Only real problems are caused by things that were not screwed up themselves, but are now happening in the Eifel.