There are amazing careers in the world of public relations – and there are very amazing ones. It is astonishing, for example, when journalists who have always insisted that they are completely apolitical suddenly speak for a party. This happens more often. Far more astonishing, however: If a press spokesman was a man of conviction, was considered a man for the rough, rose and fell with his boss, is also faced with investigations into infidelity and bribery, among other things because of this he had to leave his post and was parked in a low place – and if then suddenly, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he’s back at the top and in the front. As spokesman for the chancellor’s party, for example, responsible for strategic communication.
Such a case is that of the Austrian Gerald Fleischmann, most recently an employee of the ÖVP parliamentary group in Parliament. On Wednesday afternoon it became known that Chancellor Karl Nehammer had recalled the 48-year-old, who belonged to the closest circle of his predecessor Sebastian Kurz, to a central post in the ruling party’s media work. Even in the ÖVP, many were surprised and not all enthusiastic. The federal party will already know what they are doing there, or “no comment”, the quoted Crown newspaper some state politicians. The Green coalition partner said that “the questionable image that this creates to the outside world” is “devastating”. The ÖVP must be responsible for this itself.
Fleischmann was the epitome of the disreputable “message control”
Chancellor and party leader Nehammer, who made a decision that can definitely be described as a provocation, must first take responsibility for this. Fleischmann was the epitome of the disreputable “message control” for which Kurz was famous – that is, for access to and penetration of the media, for massive, sometimes personal attacks and calls when articles or reports were very critical. Now he’s back. But maybe he never left; It was said that he continued to pull the strings for and with Kurz in the parliamentary group.
Fleischmann himself is said to have assured that the old tone and methods would not return. He wanted, loud again Crown, to “build a modern cross-media newsroom”. Press work, digital communication and member communication would be bundled. At the latest, however, if charges are brought against Kurz, Fleischmann himself and other ex-colleagues for doctored surveys and embezzled taxpayers’ money, he might have to resign again.