This time the moderator mutes himself. He doesn’t want to comment on his own story. On how he went from being a funny cult moderator on public law to one of the most influential, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming propagators of conspiracy ideologies in Germany. The six-part podcast Cui Bono: WTF happend to Ken Jebsen? traces the wrong path. You hear a lot from Ken Jebsen. But he didn’t want to talk to the makers.
The quick word acrobat has been muted twice. Ten years ago, when he was kicked out of the RBB after accusations of anti-Semitism, which he has always denied. But his show Ken FM, was still on the net after ten years on the radio. Until YouTube permanently blocked the channel with 500,000 subscribers last November: Once again, Jebsen had gone too far, the video platform excluded the 54-year-old because of repeated incorrect information about the corona virus.
Cui Bono: WTF happend to Ken Jebsen? – The title of this six-part podcast contains two questions: What the hell has happened to Ken Jebsen since he roamed Berlin as a young, anarchic radio and television presenter in the wild 1990s? And: Cui bono – for whom – is it Jebsen, self-proclaimed uncoverer of alleged truths? “We’re turning the tables,” explains Khesrau Behroz in the first episode of the podcast: “Which interests, which actors are behind the conspiracy theories, behind Ken Jebsen and Ken FM? “
There are a few alarming answers to that.
Behroz is a journalist and writer for the production company K2H, the Cui Bono together with Studio Bummens (Baywatch Berlin, Good Germans) as well as NDR and RBB, the former employer. Doesn’t he provide Jebsen with a splendid stage – even if he doesn’t even step on it, but is quoted in detail and has his say with recorded speeches and broadcast excerpts? Counter-question: What would be gained by ignoring Jebsen’s broad-based activities?
Cui Bono thoroughly discloses the career. It tells how Ken Jebsen went crazy from a self-confident, daring speaking talent to a conspiracy illogic and how he became one of the central figures in a network of corona deniers, democracy opponents and organizers of political disinformation campaigns.
When it comes to public law, nobody has looked so closely for a long time. Or?
The RBB, that does Cui Bono clearly, has let him as a moderator for too long. Even if the processing of this public service career within the podcast is incomplete. Because current and former RBB employees refer to a non-disclosure agreement that was made with Jebsen when he was kicked out. The fact that RBB pauses as a co-producer in the second episode, which mainly affects the broadcaster in terms of content, is a bit half-baked. But what predominates: The RBB not only provides archive material, but also actively works on the history, which is in part its own. Although the station is not in the best light.
Khesrau Behroz and his team have collected a lot of material and talked to many people, including Jebsen’s former companions. The researchers identified a turning point in 2014, in the wake of the vigil for peace during the protests in Ukraine. At the time, Jebsen saw himself as a leftist, explains journalist and radicalization expert Sören Musyal: as anti-American, anti-capitalist, pro-Russian. He wanted to dock with the left, but was perceived by the majority as an enemy. The swing to the right took place in the wake of the xenophobic riots in Chemnitz: “Right-wing forces are in the Ken FM-Community took over the discourse, “says Behroz.
At this point in time, Ken Jebsen has been on dubious missions in Ukraine and Russia for a long time. Establishes close contacts with the German branch of the Russian propaganda broadcaster RT. And has good contacts with the Russian Internet Research Agency, the troll factory that was instrumental in Russian interference in the US presidential election campaign in 2016. Especially in the last two episodes Cui Bono very complex. Because the podcast takes great care to be able to substantiate every claim, it names the video, audio, and social media sources that it mainly refers to. And where there is no clear evidence, only circumstantial evidence, he makes it clear. It’s a complicated, informal web that spreads out in front of the listeners. And still remains exciting until the last minute.
For the men – all of them men – who are behind the Russian disinformation campaigns, Jebsen is a godsend. People like him that lays Cui Bono are essential in order to carry destabilizing fake news far into the respective western societies. Voluntarily or without them noticing. In the USA the radio presenter Alex Jones is such a multiplier, in Germany the well-connected Ken Jebsen is the central figure. So it makes you shudder, the key answer to the question: for whom?
Cui Bono: WTF happend to Ken Jebsen ?, ARD audio library as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music.