Press council rejects image articles on freedom of expression-what now?

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Entdecken Sie die Kontroversen rund um den BILD-Artikel „Die Universitäter“: Der Deutsche Presserat spricht von einem Verstoß gegen die Sorgfaltspflicht, jedoch bleibt die scharfe Kritik an einem offenen Brief von Wissenschaftlern innerhalb der Meinungsfreiheit. Erfahren Sie mehr über die Hintergründe und die Reaktionen aus der Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft.
Discover the controversy around the image article "Die Universitäter": The German press council speaks of a violation of the duty of care, but the sharp criticism of an open letter from scientists within freedom of expression remains. Learn more about the background and reactions from the science community. (Symbolbild/MB)

The BILD newspaper in criticism: press council speaks clearly!

The excitement about the controversial article "The University Middle" of the picture editorial team beats high waves! The German press council imposed its weakest sanction against the newspaper - and above all because of a wrong capacity! What had happened? A photo of pro-Palestinian protests at the Berlin Humboldt University was wrongly attributed to the Free University, which causes a lot of vertebrae.

Another crucial point: Despite the serious mistakes that the Press Council found, there were no further violations of the press code. The committee classified the sharp criticism of picture of an open letter of over 600 scientists as legitimate - a clear sign that freedom of expression here keeps the upper hand here!

The background in detail

In May 2023, a group of scientists published an open letter that protested against the evacuation of a pro-Palestinian protest camp at the Free University of Berlin. BILD countered this publicly effective campaign with hard allegations, the signatories even called "supporters of Juden-Hass-Demos". These claims were exaggerated by the press council, but considered permissible, since there were demonstrably anti -Semitic statements in the context of the protest camp, which was later admitted by the AStA of the Free University.

The press council agreed that in this case the reporting did not violate the truthfulness or honor of the signatories. A picture gallery that depicted some of the scientists was also classified as unassailable - due to their public and controversial statements, they also had to face identifiability.

The reaction of those affected

a total of 15 universities and teachers turned indignantly to the press council because they considered the article to be defamatory and incorrect. They emphasized that in their open letter they were only concerned with defending freedom of assembly and not a content assessment of the protests. A clear signal to the press to deal responsibly with the opinion of publicly discussed topics!

The image editorial team is confronted with a controversial assessment of its reporting-freedom of expression remains preserved, but the shadow of a scandal is not far away.