Markwort criticizes public service broadcasting – district of Munich
The slogan “Facts, facts, facts” made him famous. At a panel discussion of the Ismaninger and Unterföhringer FDP, Helmut Markwort, who founded and published the news magazine Focus, criticized the public media system in Germany. The FDP member of parliament would be a supporter of the dual system if it served its purpose. The fact that, in his opinion, death is not the case is based on the famous high honors and pensions of the people in the executive floor. The Schlesinger case, but also the trial of ex-MDR manager Udo Foht, shows the massive bad investments in the system. The FDP Ismaning/Unterföhring invited him to the discussion evening in the Wirtshaus zum Medienpark after his party replaced him with another candidate in the Munich Land-Süd voting district. In the 2023 state election, Markwort is to be set up as a direct candidate for the Freising district association.
Instead of cutting back on programming, a necessary reform of the public service system must involve financial cuts in administration, production and technology. According to the journalist, “waste of money, wealth and multiheadedness” are the main problems of the system, from which the content suffers. At present, 60 percent of the broadcasting fee, which totals more than eight billion euros a year, goes into administration and only 40 percent into programming. Therefore, as a cost-cutting measure, he calls for the centralization of personnel administration, technology and production across the station. Markwort cites Radio Bremen and Saarland Radio as examples of this, which, as small stations, hardly made any contribution to the national program of the ARD. “I’m fighting in the Bavarian Broadcasting Council that you go ahead and don’t pay anything more into the financial equalization that keeps the miniature stations alive,” said the media maker. A newly introduced commission should try to create synergies in the areas of technology and production. “If you were to create a new public service broadcaster, then the central thing would certainly be: one station, one administration,” says Markwort. The radio fee, which is often referred to as a “compulsory fee” that evening, must never be increased again.
Markwort himself was elected to the Broadcasting Council of the BR for the FDP. Since 2018, he has been a member of the control committee to monitor compliance with the program principles of the ARD sub-broadcaster. Great criticism resonates when Markwort describes his 49 colleagues on the BR Broadcasting Council as “absolute dilettantes and amateurs” who are “basically lobbyists”. He describes himself as a lone fighter who, thanks to his more than 50 years of experience in journalism, has the most knowledge of the subject. Markwort’s election to the Broadcasting Council was not without resistance. Due to his significant participation in the Munich Radio Gong and Antenne Bayern, he was accused of conflicts of interest.
The FDP politician sees his party receiving too little attention from the public media
In addition, Markwort is upset about the “chain of obfuscation” surrounding the leave of absence of the former BR program director for culture, Reinhard Scolik. His contract was prematurely extended to 2024 two years ago by the outgoing director Ulrich Wilhelm. Under his successor Katja Wildermuth, Scolik was eliminated at the end of 2021. The 85-year-old calls for more transparency here.
The FDP politician sees his party receiving too little attention from the public media. The Greens and left-leaning politics are the favorites of these senders, according to Markwort, “the other Germany” should have more of a say. In his argument, he refers to a survey of volunteers from ARD and Deutschlandradio from 2020, in which the Sunday question was asked. 57 percent of the volunteers say they vote for the Greens, 23 percent for the left. The CDU would not even make it over the five percent hurdle, and the FDP only landed at 1.3 percent, Markwort quoted the survey as saying. The survey was not representative of all volunteers from the public broadcasters, since ZDF and Saarländische Rundfunk are not included. Of the 150 volunteers, 86 took part in the survey and 77 percent indicated their party affiliation. Markwort also observed a left-green tendency when inviting talk show guests. The journalist therefore demands that the directors and broadcasting councils pay more attention to political reporting. Of course, the political opinion of a journalist does not have to contradict the maxim of objectivity that is learned in the traineeship.
Analyzes by the editorial network Germany also showed that the Union and the SPD were dominant in 2019 ahead of the Greens, the FDP and the left and the underrepresented AfD on the four major talk shows “Anne Will”, “Maybrit Illner”, “Hart aber fair” and “Maischberger”, as reported by the Handelsblatt.