Tom Buhrow hadn’t expected hugs anyway: The works meeting of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) on Friday was planned as a purely digital encounter – moderated by the house management by teams. Nobody can get close (or too close). It was the WDR boss’s first appointment with his team since his presentation in front of the Hamburg Overseas Club. There Buhrow had called for a taboo-free “fundamental debate” on the future of public broadcasting in Germany. And outed himself as a “reformer”.
The self-proclaimed chief “reformer” was not enthusiastic about this. Buhrow’s keynote speech on the Alster triggered completely different emotions on the Rhine. Fears of existence, for example – as with some musicians of the WDR Symphony Orchestra, who have since wondered whether the director still wants them. Or with young employees of “Radiowellen,” whose number (ARD-wide 64) Buhrow considers exaggerated. According to SZ information, the WDR staff council chairman waddled Buhrow right at the beginning for this “slap in the face” of the colleagues.
After all, Buhrow was not a coward on Friday. Right at the beginning, the head of WDR repeated his basic thesis that public broadcasting “as it is now cannot survive in the long term”. That had brought him the accusation of “treason”, the man played wrong in his own way – because “always only defensive”.
All this has sown anger in the house. A number of editors accuse their director of simply capitulating in the face of a long-standing anti-ARD campaign by the Springer press and the AfD. George Restle, the monitorboss, is said to have had a duel with Buhrow on Friday, whom he seems to perceive as a kind of can opener: Careful, keep your hands off the right-wing populists’ toolbox!
On Friday, however, not all employees shared the concern that Buhrow had torn down firewalls without need or reason. In the teams debate – and especially in the parallel chat – many editors expressed the view that changes had to be made. And have a say instead of moaning. “A fundamental debate is (over)due!” typed a colleague into the internal WDR channel. What is unfortunately missing is “strong ARD self-confidence”, without which one would hardly be able to design a new broadcasting system.
“Presumptuous” to “embarrassing”
Even well-meaning people on the station say that Buhrow himself contributed to this erosion. The manner of his approach has outraged many broadcasters in the shadow of Cologne Cathedral: His appearance as a “private man” who “without taboos and without the usual considerations” speaks freely from the liver – many in the corridors of the broadcasting center commented on that as “presumptuous ” to “embarrassing”. Apparently he doesn’t think his shop is capable of much appeal – why else would he be talking in distant Hamburg and prefer to publish the wording in the FAZ instead of on WDR.de? The boss has stylized himself as someone who questions a lot. “But he shied away from the answer as to what constitutes the core of a perhaps smaller but indispensable broadcasting service,” said one participant.
Some had hoped for a personal gesture from Buhrow on Friday. In the WDR chat, the anonymous demand earned more than fifty “likes” that the management should refrain from tariff increases for several years as a “necessary signal” both internally and externally. This also meant Buhrow’s basic salary of at least 413,000 euros gross per year. Such a salary already hardly fits a “reformer” who warned in Hamburg that Germany would no longer want to support its fee-financed broadcasting as before.
No, no “I understand” came from Buhrow on Friday, reports WDR employees. Neither as a private person back from the Alster, nor as an intendant on the Rhine.