Behzad Karim Khani: How my trust in the mainstream media was severely damaged - Commentary
Our author writes about his experiences as a freelance contributor to various editorial offices, including Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
When the conflict between Iran and Israel reached a heated escalation stage, I received a request from the Süddeutsche newspaper asking if I would like to write something about it. Attached to the email is an article that I can or should use as a guide, written by a journalist who draws no line between journalism and activism. The text assumes an ignorant, gut-feeling reader. It is superficial and uncritical.
I know the editor because he held back and did not publish an article he himself had commissioned from an Israeli colleague. The article criticized the German view of Gaza . I do not want to waste his time or my own on an article that will not be published.
I would write a comment, but not like that, I answer. My view is not distorted by reasons of state, but I do understand the conflict. The editor doesn't want to know anything more. He politely declines. Fine by me.
The next day, another editor contacts me with the same request. Same newspaper. Different department. They know nothing about each other. I explain. Repeat my position. The editor: "You don't have to say genocide straight away." I never said genocide. "Campaign of revenge and annihilation?" I ask. It feels like asking for permission. Why this agreement? And for an opinion piece, no less! "That's no problem," he says. I write the article. Factually. Clearly. Decode the language of the Iranian regime, explain the technical and economic side, the limits of the escalation level.
I have been asked several times to write about what can be done against the regime. After all, I am an opponent of the regime.
Should I write the article or just sign it?If there were a way to fit all this into 8,000 characters, the regime would not have existed for 45 years. I devote a few lines to one of the regime's weaknesses. I have nothing more. All points that could be irritating are highlighted, and I provide sources. When I get the edited text back to look at, the very phrase we had agreed on is missing. I become a little harsher in my tone. They should decide whether I should write the article or just sign it. Only after I insist does the phrase appear.
I had a similar experience at Der Spiegel. After October 7, I was asked to pitch my texts on the topic there first. When I offered to write an analysis about how Israel was on the way to becoming a failed state , the answer I received was that, despite the diversity of opinions in the magazine, the thesis was too pessimistic.
Too pessimistic? Since when is that a criterion? So don't you write anything about the climate catastrophe? About Ukraine? At this point, Spiegel columnist Sascha Lobo also expressed his understanding for war crimes such as food and water blockades against two million people, about half of whom are minors. This, in turn, seems to be OK.
A few months later, Der Spiegel published an interview with the Israeli historian Omer Bartov , who recounted almost word for word what I had started my "too pessimistic" article with. The term genocide is used by the ICJ, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and countless NGOs.
Der Spiegel now also checks opinion articles for facts. I write for a smaller newspaper, but without interference. Readers' trust in the mainstream media has been severely damaged. Mine too.
Berliner-zeitung
