http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3839193,00.html
Valentin Schmidt, head of the DW council:
The accusations are unfounded and can not be accepted. The checks
brought no any evidence for a one-sided coverage in favour of the
Chinese government, either in radio broadcasts or online. Thus the DW
council concluded unanimously that the editorial staff of the Chinese
service violated neither the DW act nor DW's program guidelines.
One has to be surprised about the dynamics and the personal component
the public discussion has reached. It appears that the journalistic
principle to get the facts first before coming to any conclusions is not
being applied here. This is not helpful and dangerous, especially in the
internet age where also unconfirmed conjectures spread fast. It is the
highest value of Germany's foreign broadcasting that its coverage is
trustworth. Sweeping suspicions against DW's head as well as all staff
members are absolutely inappropriate, even taboo in light of DW's
importance for Germany and the high regard it enjoys all over the world.
The council did not go into unconfirmed suspicions but instead checked
the accusations in depht, with care and the necessary responsibility.
Hans-Uwe Erichsen, committee for programming of DW's council:
An external company has been contracted for translating pieces about the
Chinese parliament, the Olympic Games, the earthquake and Tibet.
Furthermore the quotations that got criticized by Deutschlandfunk have
been compared with the original and the external translation in detail.
The committee concluded that Deutschlandfunk's programme caused
misunderstandings by selecting quotations and letting out words or
complementary passages.
Erik Bettermann, DW director:
The heads of department speak German as their mother tongue and in
addition also at least one language of the target areas they are
responsible for. The heads of the 30 language services for their part
are either native speakers of German and know their service language
very good, or they are native speakers of their service language and
speak German very good. The four eyes principle and continuous program
reviews are standards of the editorial work, including occassional
translations back to German. I rely on the self-control and
responsibility of the editorial staff very much. Dispute belongs to DW's
culture, but the muzzle does not.
Another press release about DW's plannings for the 2010-2013 period,
approved by the council:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3838914,00.html
Some points: DW will focus on audiences that are open for various points
of view, use the media intensively and have great influence on the
public opinion in their country. These audiences prefer services in
either their mother tongue or English as "lingua franca", thus it's of
great importance to broadcast in many languages. The German-language
offerings serve in the first place the purpose to present Germany and
promote the German language. Germans travelling abroad are instead being
referred to the increasing possibilities to use domestic German media
worldwide. Radio will rely on "modern modules" suitable for FM
rebroadcasts and podcasting. Shortwave will be kept only where it is
"still relevant for the target audiences". DW TV to be expanded, details
omitted here.
Probably more coverage will appear, these press releases actually refer
to a news conference DW held today. So far the only report I saw was
just an obvious summary of these releases by somebody who did not attend
either.
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxld/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:dxld-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:dxld-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
dxld-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
0 comments:
Post a Comment