Gernot Bauer (journalist)

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Gernot Bauer (* 1970 ) is an Austrian journalist for the news magazine profil .

Life

From 1996 to 1997, Bauer completed the editorial course for magazine journalism from profil and the University of Vienna . Since 1998 he has been an editor in the domestic policy section of profil . He completed his studies in 2004 with the diploma thesis The Argentina Crisis taking into account the country risk analysis as Mag. Rer. soc. oec. at the Vienna University of Economics and Business .

His focus areas include economic and security policy as well as background reports on political parties and governments. Bauer's guiding principles for the future professional are: Don't bore your audience any more than you do yourself. Train your memory. Always be skeptical of advice from others, otherwise you will miss your job.

Bauer became known to the general public through investigative journalism in connection with the Silberstein affair during the Austrian National Council election in 2017 .

Work (excerpt)

Gender Pay Gap

On the occasion of Equal Pay Day 2012, Bauer and Robert Treichler questioned in the cover story Löhne: The Truth About Inequality , what the 25.5 percent income gap between women and men is actually about . After questioning the chairmen of the works council of large Austrian companies, it turned out that there was no discrimination . Women politicians deliberately operated with wrong numbers as a weapon in the gender struggle. Clinging to such traditional myths borders on a denial of reality. Where there are still marginal differences, these can be explained by assembly work or by additional services. In management, too, there is equal income and differences of 5 percent are below statistical significance . Thanks to a sample of 3.1 million employees, the German Federal Statistical Office had such detailed data that it was able to eliminate 15 distorting factors and the adjusted difference fell to eight percent. Baby breaks are not even taken into account due to a lack of data.

Reactions

The research brought the two journalists and the editorial team strong criticism from women's organizations and politicians. The SPÖ politician Ilse Fetik , chairman of the works council at Erste Bank , accused Profil of not being interested in proper research and offering her expertise . As a result, Fetik confirmed that “everything is actually in order in her company too.” The women's organization Platform 20000frauen demanded, “Men should never write about discrimination against women, because they are forced to do so with their gender and the resulting localization in the Society resulting bias. ” Barbara Blaha relativized the rumored percentage income gap and focused on the question of why there are income differences at all. Minister for Women Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek was “unfortunately unable to establish a number” on the question of whether the large income gap can be proven. Measures such as mandatory income reports would be an instrument for companies to determine whether they would discriminate against women. Even part-time work would take revenge later in the guesthouse with lower incomes.

The article was not only met with approval from our own editorial team. Ulla Schmid asked why the work of a painter is worth more than that of a hairdresser . Elfriede Hammerl criticized the fact that a geriatric nurse earns less than a bricklayer and that this, in addition to the disdain for the performance of women's work , would be discrimination.

Negative price

Profile editor Christian Rainer was awarded the Rosa Handtaschl in 2013 by the Austrian women's media network , among other things because of the cover story on the income gap . He would not shy away from an award ceremony, accompanied by five male editors who were recently on paternity leave .

Silberstein affair

The Silberstein affair was concerted political Dirty Campaigning during the national elections in Austria in 2017 by the Federal Vice-border Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO), together with her in charge, known for this election method policy advisor . It is named after the Israeli spin doctor Tal Silberstein , who was engaged by the SPÖ in election campaigns since 2001.

With Silberstein's arrest on August 14th in Israel on suspicion of bribery , forgery and money laundering and the subsequent termination of his contract with the SPÖ, the first SPÖ election campaign documents from his environment soon appeared in the media. The affair was subsequently intensified by further extensive documents leaked to Gernot Bauer from profil and Anna Thalhammer from the daily Die Presse from the SPÖ party headquarters. Until the election on October 15, the SPÖ was forced to make numerous denials , which were refuted by the two media shortly afterwards, thus keeping the public discourse going.

The campaign was mainly directed against the political competitor Sebastian Kurz , who took over the leadership of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) on May 14, 2017 and whose enormously high popularity ratings above all other government politicians posed a threat to the SPÖ. It was mainly conducted under false authorship on anonymous Facebook pages, which were initially assigned to the local area of ​​the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The content served partly racist , anti-Semitic and xenophobic schemes . The strategy behind the pages was to scare off those who sympathize with Kurz, on the other hand, to impute the design of the pages to the FPÖ because dirty campaigning always has a negative effect on the sender among voters. The reporting led to the resignation of the SPÖ federal manager and election campaign manager Georg Niedermühlbichler and the suspension of the SPÖ election campaign manager Paul Pöchhacker . The SPÖ was also forced to disclose its agreements and fees with Silberstein and to call in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism because of the racist and anti-Semitic content on the Facebook pages .

In the election, the ÖVP overtook the SPÖ by a considerable margin and became the party with the strongest vote. The SPÖ kept its share of the vote from the 2013 National Council election and landed second just before the FPÖ, which also increased significantly. The Greens left the National Council after 31 years due to massive migration of votes, including those to the SPÖ . On December 18, 2017, the Federal Government Kurz I was sworn in from a coalition between the ÖVP and the FPÖ.

Allegations against journalists

After the first publications, Bauer and Thalhammer were accused of being fed information to harm the SPÖ. Bauer says: “Feeding and instrumentalization would only be conceivable if the journalist wrote his article according to the informant's ideas. This can be categorically excluded for 'Profil'. ”The magazine Falter claimed to want to check the information leaked to Profil and Die Presse and was referred to the source protection . Even Christoph Matznetter (SPO), who by then-Chancellor Christian Kern (SPO) as head of a crisis management team affair Silberstein was used to educate and "sometimes aggressive, sometimes erratic performances" into a " victim-reversal operation" demanded " In all seriousness the journalist asked the press to reveal her sources. "

The media scientist Fritz Hausjell criticized that the revelations did not come about through journalistic work such as research . The data protection activist Maximilian Schrems indirectly suggested a softening of the editorial secrecy .

Threat and persecution

Together with the publisher of profil , Christian Rainer , Bauer reported on October 3rd of threats from: "Not as usual from anonymous, mostly right-wing and left-wing radicals, but from what you call seasoned SPÖ voters who really threatened us."

Bauer and Thalhammer were made aware in mid-October 2017 that they were being shadowed . The Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is pursuing evidence of an Israeli security company.

Works

  • How do I become a domestic policy journalist? In: Reinhard Christl, Silke Rudorfer (Ed.): How do I become a journalist? Paths to the dream job . LIT , Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7000-0687-9 , pp. 207-214 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Reinhard Christl, Silke Rudorfer (Ed.): How do I become a journalist? Paths to the dream job . LIT , Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7000-0687-9 , pp. 214 .
  2. ↑ Gernot Bauer: The Argentina crisis taking into account the country risk analysis . Vienna 2003 ( Vienna University of Economics and Business , diploma thesis, 2004).
  3. ↑ Gernot Bauer, Robert Treichler: With List and Lücke . In: profile . No. 14 , April 2, 2012, p. 16, 17 ( Online [accessed October 18, 2017] Cover story: Wages: The Truth About Inequality).
  4. ↑ Myth of wage gap? April Fool's Day in profile. SPÖ , April 3, 2012, accessed on October 18, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Robert Treichler: We frustrated . In: profile . No. 20 , May 14, 2012, p. 34, 35 ( online [accessed October 18, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Income equity ZIB2. (Video; from 2:40 and 3:18) In: ZIB 2 . Österreichischer Rundfunk , April 5, 2012, accessed on October 18, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Ulla Schmid: Among angry men . In: profile . No. 15 , April 6, 2012, p. 32 ( online [accessed October 18, 2017]).
  8. ↑ Elfriede Hammerl : An oblique view . In: profile . No.  15 , April 6, 2012, p. 33 ( Online [accessed October 18, 2017]).
  9. ^ "Rosa Handtaschl" to profil editor Christian Rainer. In: OTS . Frauennetzwerk Medien, March 1, 2013, accessed October 25, 2017 .
  10. ^ "Rosa Handtaschl" for "Profil" editor Christian Rainer. In: dieStandard.at. Der Standard , March 1, 2013, accessed October 25, 2017 .
  11. ^ Thomas Hofer : Spin Doctors in Austria. The Practice of American Campaign Advisors. What they can do, whom they advise, how they work . 1st edition. LIT , Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8645-X , p. 76 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ Christian Böhmer: SPÖ again lost a consultant . In: Courier . August 14, 2017, p. 2 ( Online [accessed on October 27, 2017] Online title: SPÖ: Wahlkampfberater Silberstein arrested).
  13. ↑ Peter Temel, Raffaela Lindorfer: Embarrassing SPÖ mails: First trace leads to ex-advisor Silberstein . In: Courier . September 12, 2017, p. 4 ( Online [accessed October 31, 2017]).
  14. ↑ Gernot Bauer: Fast and dirty . In: profile . No. 37 , September 11, 2017, p. 20, 21 ( online [accessed on October 2, 2017] online title: SPÖ commissioned anti-short videos).
  15. ^ A b Anna Thalhammer: Silberstein and the dirt buckets of the SPÖ . In: The press . October 1, 2017, p. 3 ( Online [accessed October 21, 2017]).
  16. ↑ a b Gernot Bauer: The truth about the truth . In: profile . No. 40 , October 2, 2017, p. 18, 19 ( Online [accessed on October 21, 2017] Online title: SPÖ consultant Silberstein organized right-wing Facebook page against Kurz).
  17. ↑ Claus Pándi : Little joy with the coalition - but the majority does not want new elections . In: Kronen Zeitung . December 11, 2016, p.  2 ( Online [accessed November 2, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Kern leads with party leaders, but clearly behind Kurz. Kronen Zeitung , November 18, 2016, accessed on November 2, 2017 .
  19. ^ Election campaign ammunition on the Internet . In: Courier . July 8, 2017, p.  3 ( Online [accessed November 2, 2017]).
  20. ↑ Lisa Kogelnik: The election campaign is particularly dirty on the Internet . In: The Standard . September 1, 2017, p. 8 ( Online [accessed October 27, 2017]).
  21. ↑ Gernot Bauer, Michael Nikbakhsh: Filth layer work . In: profile . No. 40 , October 9, 2017, p. 18-20, 23-24 .
  22. ↑ The scandal over dirty campaigns shakes the SPÖ. Spiegel Online , October 1, 2017, accessed October 21, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Günther Oswald: 536,000 euros, but no signed contract . In: The Standard . October 6, 2017, p. 10 ( online [accessed on October 27, 2017] online title on October 5, 2017: SPÖ paid 536,000 euros for Silberstein, but has no signed contract).
  24. ↑ The media as instruments of the election campaign. Österreichischer Rundfunk , October 6, 2017, accessed on October 18, 2017 .
  25. ↑ Barbara Tóth , Florian Klenk , Josef Redl, Nina Horaczek : The Silberstein Affair . In: Falter . No.  40 , October 4, 2017, p. 10–12 ( online [accessed October 3, 2017] published online October 2, 2017).
  26. ↑ a b Gernot Bauer: Nothing but the truth . In: profile . No. 52-2017, 1-2018 , December 22, 2017, pp. 48–53 ( online [accessed December 22, 2017]).
  27. ↑ Florian Klenk , Barbara Tóth : Rise and Fall of Christian K. In: Falter . No.  41 , October 11, 2017, p. 10–13 ( excerpt [accessed October 11, 2017]).
  28. ^ Fritz Hausjell : Prince and Princess . In: The time . No.  44 , October 26, 2017, p. 12 ( online [accessed December 23, 2017]).
  29. ↑ Christian Rainer and Gernot Bauer on the Silberstein case. (Video; length 6:45 minutes) profile , October 3, 2017, accessed on October 4, 2017 (from 5:00 am ).
  30. ↑ Anti-VP-Rundbrief in ÖBB & Agent Alert . In: Courier . October 14, 2017, p.  5 : "According to investigators from the Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, there are even indications that an Israeli security company is behind it."
  31. ↑ Denials after reporting because of spying . In: Salzburger Nachrichten . No.  239 , October 14, 2017, p. 7 ( Online [accessed on October 14, 2017] Online title: SPÖ denies involvement in shadowing journalists).

Remarks

  1. ↑ In addition to the disclosure obligation of the Equal Treatment Act , in companies with employee representatives, the works council has been permitted since 1974 according to Section 89 Z1 of the Labor Constitution Act to inspect the documents used to calculate salaries. See Federal Law Gazette No. 22/1974. (PDF; 3.8 MB) Republic of Austria , January 15, 1974, p. 412 , accessed on October 25, 2017 .
  2. ↑ One requirement of the SPÖ and Greens operated 1997 Women's referendum was followed by the right to part-time work. In addition, in Austria there is an unequal retirement age between men and women of five years, which affects the pension amount and thus the life income of women.
  3. ↑ In Austria, male and female painters or bricklayers are heavy workers within the meaning of the list of professions issued for the heavy labor ordinance. See job list for women and men with “hard physical labor”. (PDF; 53 kB) Austrian Social Insurance , May 2017, accessed on December 4, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Farmer, Gernot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1970