Volker Bräutigam (publicist)

Volker Bräutigam at a May 1st demonstration in Hamburg

Volker Bräutigam (born June 21, 1941 in Gera ) is a German journalist and publicist . He was news editor of the Tagesschau , long-time staff council and editor of the NDR , trade union official ( IG Medien ) and most recently a university lecturer in Taipei / Taiwan .

Life

After working as a printing assistant, editorial volunteer , driver and a period of unemployment, Bräutigam became editor at the Augsburger Allgemeine , the Stuttgarter Zeitung and others. From 1975 to 1985 he was, according to his own account, the news editor of the Tagesschau in Hamburg. From 1985 he was a freelance staff councilor for six years and then worked in the editorial team of N3. There he was mainly involved in the educational program.

Bridegroom was also director of studies and press officer at the Evangelical Academy in Loccum .

In 1960 he became a member of the ÖTV trade union and later switched to IG Druck und Papier . In 1975 he came to the NDR and became a member of the RFFU , which merged with the IG Medien and from which the ver.di union emerged . In the course of his trade union membership, Bräutigam was chairman of the North Association of the RFFU / IG Medien as well as a board member of IG Medien and held other honorary functions in the DGB .

In July 1988, Bräutigam organized the first work stoppage in German television history for IG Medien / RFFU on Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

In the 1990s, he relocated to Taiwan . In Taipei , Bräutigam worked for a research project for the National Science Council and as a lecturer at the Translation Studies Institute at Fu-Jen University . In the years leading up to his retirement, he was the environmental protection technology consultant for the Environmental Protection Foundation (EPF) at Taiwan National University in Taipei.

He also wrote as a Far East correspondent for the Ossietzky magazine (Hanover / Berlin), the successor to the Weltbühne . For the German Academic Exchange Service and its alumni organization in Taiwan, Bräutigam developed the idea and concept for the international science conference "Sun, Wind and Hot Springs" in September 2000 in Taipei. Representatives from science, business, politics and the media also traveled from Germany to attend and President Chen Shui-bian gave the opening speech.

After his retirement in 2002, Bräutigam returned to Germany. Occasionally he writes a. for Ossietzky , for the DKP weekly newspaper Unser Zeit or for NRhZ-Online as well as for Rubikon .

Since 2014, Bräutigam and Friedhelm Klinkhammer , the former chairman of the ver.di operating association NDR, have submitted around 100 program complaints to the NDR. In her opinion, the reporting is “agitational, propagandistic and disinformative”.

Publications

In Die Tagesschauer. A Tagesschau editor reports (1982), Groom analyzed the structures and working methods of the Tagesschau editorial team amid the tension between economic and political influences and came to the conclusion while he was still working as a news editor that the Tagesschau brought "what confirms and confirms our political conditions solidified and what the masses controlled by the public media supposedly want to hear and see ”. Bridegroom identified the causes primarily in the massive influence of party politics on the supervisory bodies, which he also witnessed: “Nobody becomes director who is critical of the parties overall. Nobody becomes editor-in-chief unless he has the right connections or the right party membership ”. In a review for Die Zeit, Hans-Heinrich Obuch described the snapshots and information provided by the groom as “clear and precise”. They enlightened the reader “Mechanisms of a superficial preparation of news that is up to date”.

In Die Falschmünzer-Republik - Von Politblendern und Medienstrichern (2009), illustrated by Klaus Stuttmann , Bräutigam presents his criticism of the lack of compliance with broadcasting law . The majority of the mass media would justify and promote the existing social imbalances "by means of false information and aggressive intolerance" and tighten. In doing so, the media would become “counterfeiters in the interests of those elites who amass unlimited wealth and now wield unlimited power. And this without any democratic legitimation. "Groom's criticism mainly relates to the coverage of China.

Die Macht um eight (2017), which Bräutigam wrote with Ulrich Gellermann , is dedicated to the presentation “that the Tagesschau machine is neither reliable nor neutral and by no means serious. It is only little different than fifteen minutes of state radio. ”(Preface) In the papers for German and international politics , Daniela Dahn emphasizes in her review The Echolot der Macht , the authors argued very precisely when they complained about violations of program guidelines. The possibility of audience participation in the form of criticism turns out to be a farce in view of the inviolability of the Broadcasting Council . But it is probably more than just a brazen claim to infallibility, as the authors suspected, but in Dahn's view it may be even worse: “The program editors would certainly prefer to report on explosive backgrounds rather than repeat the same clichés . But only if they - perhaps even unconsciously - use these clichés can they count on recognition. Yes, one gets the impression that they are listening almost exclusively to the echo sounder of the hierarchies that support them - in addition, interested viewers and readers do not belong to the target group. "

Publications

Monographs

• as editor: The freedom of expression of the journalist. (= Loccumer Protocols. No. 02/75).
• The daily showers . Reinbek 1982, ISBN 3-499-20302-5 .
• The Republic of Counterfeiters - From political blinders and media hackers. Kückenshagen 2009, ISBN 978-3-938398-90-6 .
• With Uli Gellermann and Friedhelm Klinkhammer: The power at eight. The daily news factor. Neue Kleine Bibliothek 241. PapyRossa Verlag , Cologne, May 2017, ISBN 978-3-89438-633-7 .

Essays

• Personnel information system at the NDR. In: Monika Binas (Ed.): The data network - computers threaten freedom. Heidelberg 1983, ISBN 3-921265-40-1 .
• The Art of Killing Dragons - To study the German language in Taiwan. In: Free Asia. Volume 39, No. 18/19, Taipei 1997.
• with Chen Yung-Yu: Disparity of the language levels as a problem when translating. In: German-Taiwanese booklets. No. 1, Taipei 1999.
• Sun, wind and hot springs. In: Taipei today. Volume 14, Issue 1, Taipei 2001.
• The earth is all that we have in heaven. In: Ursula Richter, Astrid Wiedemann (Hrsg.): Angel stories at the fireplace. Reinbek 2005, ISBN 3-499-24013-0 .
• Cheap to sell - the German railways. In: Gabriele Gillen , Walter van Rossum (Ed.): Black Book Germany. Missing Information Manual. Reinbek, 2008, ISBN 978-3-498-02504-5 .

Lectures

• Education and culture on German television. Taipei 1996, Lecture Series, Fu Jen University, Graduate Institute for Translation and Interpretation.
• Everyday language on television. Taipei 1996, lecture at the 5th Annual Congress of the Association of Germanists and German Teachers Taiwan, Cheng Gong University, Tai-nan.
• On the problem of translating foreign film documents. Taipei Nov. 1996, Contribution to the Translation Science Congress at Fu Jen University.
• TV Programs in Taiwan: The Country Has Better To Offer. (originally) Hamburg 1997, lecture before the "Bambusrunde".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marcus Klöckner: "Stay balanced with ARD". In: Telepolis. Retrieved December 21, 2016 . 
2. ↑ steinbergrecherche.com ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Everything in a jiffy. In: Der Spiegel. 31/1988, August 1, 1988.
4. ↑ Marcus Klöckner : Stay in tune with ARD news. In: Telepolis. 3rd April 2016.
5. ↑ Volker Bräutigam: Die Tagesschauer. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1982.
6. ↑ Hans Heinrich Obuch: Truths - given. In: The time. May 7, 1982.
7. ↑ Wolf Gauer: Book review: The Republic of Counterfeiters , M - People Make Media 10/2009 (Memento)
8. ↑ Daniela Dahn: The echo sounder of power . In: Sheets for German and international politics . September 2017, p. 120–123 ( blaetter.de [accessed November 18, 2017]).
9. ↑ Book of the month: The power at eight - Daniela Dahn. Retrieved November 18, 2017 .