Pinar Atalay still remembers how it was in the early summer of 2019. How she and her colleagues sat together in the editorial office of the public news program “Tagesthemen” and thought about how to report on Carola Rackete. “We always tried to conduct interviews,” says the journalist. For some, Rackete is a modern heroine and for others pure provocation. And that evening, Pinar Atalay, Carola Rackete and space researcher Suzanna Randall are sitting together on the stage of the SZ Economic Summit in Berlin. Atalay and Rackete talk together. This is worth mentioning because it was different so far: Atalay, the news presenter, reported above Racket.
July 1st, 2019 was one of those days. Atalay moderated the “Tagesthemen” and the people in front of the TV saw Carola Rackete on the screen. “This woman from northern Germany is moving many and many things in Europe right now,” said Atalay. That was very apt. Rackete moved people with what it did. And it stirred minds. With the rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 she had rescued 42 refugees from the Mediterranean and brought them to the Italian island of Lampedusa. It ignored the ban imposed by the Italian authorities, it ignored a new decree by the then Italian Foreign Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, which banned private rescue ships from entering Italian ports. She brought people to safety.
She doesn’t have a permanent place of residence, says Carola Rackete. You live out of the backpack.
(Photo: Friedrich Bungert / Friedrich Bungert)
Some celebrated Rackete for their courage. Others accused of breaking the law. Still others cursed her. And what’s more: Rackete was in the middle of a diplomatic conflict. Matteo Salvini described her as a “spoiled German communist” and the Sea-Watch organization as “bandits”. The German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “He who saves human lives cannot be a criminal.”
“My case had a lot of publicity,” she says today on the economic summit stage. With an emphasis on extreme. It was too much attention for her. Attention that other refugee rescuers who, unlike her, have been in prison for years, don’t get. But it was there, the attention. Because newspapers and television stations are about them and them Sea-Watch 3 reported. But also because many people wanted to know who this Carola Rackete is and what drives it. And what will become of the people she rescued from the Mediterranean.
Droughts, poverty, displacement – everything is interrelated
How do you moderate such topics, does the moderator and SZ economic director Marc Beise now want to know about Pinar Atalay? How do you stay sober when you see human suffering on the screen? “Of course, that doesn’t pass me off as cold as ice,” says Atalay. “When children suffer, I think you can see it in me. But it is important that my emotions do not overflow,” she says. Rackete thinks that something is over-foamed in her case. She doesn’t mean the emotions of the news anchors. But the extent of the coverage does. “A fairy tale character was created,” she says. Carola, the savior.
Rackete saved people. But she doesn’t want to be defined by it, not to be the “Sea Watch Captain Carola Rackete” forever. She studied nautical science and nature conservation management, she traveled on polar expeditions to the Arctic, she is an environmentalist, an activist. She knows that everything is related to everything. Global warming, storms, droughts, poverty, and flight. All the crises that Pinar Atalay talks about on her news programs. Formerly on ARD and for a few months on the private broadcaster RTL.
Is there enough coverage of the climate crisis? “We do pay attention to it,” says RTL presenter Pinar Atalay.
(Photo: Friedrich Bungert / Friedrich Bungert)
Which leads directly to the question of whether there is good and sufficient reporting on the climate crisis. The discussants are divided. Rackete thinks: no. “It will certainly be reported. But not in sufficient measure,” she says. “If we really understood this crisis, we would report about it as we did about Corona.” Instead of daily incidences, a daily global warming check. Or – this proposal was also discussed on the Internet – “Climate before eight” instead of “Stock market before eight”. Atalay finds the criticism too harsh. More is always possible, of course, but climate change is a much more common topic than it used to be. “We do take care,” says Atalay. Suzanna Randall, the space researcher, sees things like Rackete: “Carola is absolutely right.” Of course it will be reported. “But not with this urgency.”
Suzanna Randall wants to be the first German woman to fly into space.
(Photo: Friedrich Bungert / Friedrich Bungert)
Randall is also concerned about global warming. Naturally. She wants to see this planet from above at some point. The astrophysicist wants to be the first German woman to go into space, she is one of two candidates for a possible private flight to the space station ISS. Although space travel does not have the best reputation when it comes to global warming, at least since entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have been trying to shoot tourists into space with the help of billions of dollars and tons of fuel and turn them into a business. “Of course you have to ask yourself: What’s the point?” Says Randall.
The environmental activist, the television presenter and the astrophysicist can all agree on one thing: more must happen to stop global warming. And the good thing is that you can always start with it, says Carola Rackete: “I don’t know any climate researcher who says it’s too late.”