As part of a three-part 3sat series, one article describes journalistic misconduct and excess hate on the web.
Power, media, pornography. These are the themes of three contributions in the “Strong Women” series, a production by Swiss television SRG, which 3sat will be broadcasting tonight. Thus a small theme evening. Rosanna Grüter is responsible as the author. The business journalist Patrizia Laeri acts, as the end credits say, as a “moderator”.
The second post on 3sat is headed by the author and producer Grüter with “Women and Media”. A very broad field for which forty-five minutes of airtime is not enough. Even the term “media” is vague. What is meant here are the journalistic media, more precisely their tabloid reporting on prominent women politicians – which extends into the serious press.
“Strong women: Women and the media” (3sat): lurid headlines
Most of the report “Strong Women: Women and the Media” belongs to the former journalist and Swiss cantonal councilor Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin. Following a government ceremony, Spiess-Hegglin were allegedly given so-called knockout drops. The next day she had no memories of the rest of the evening, she felt pain in her abdomen. Two different traces of male DNA were found in her body and in her underwear.
The incident reached the press in a previously unknown manner. The police investigations, civil and criminal trials provided material for a flood of articles that were enriched with suspicions, allegations, and slander. Hate comments from the Internet fill entire folders.
Spiess-Hegglin was forced to end her political career. She and her family were followed downright by reporters, and the children could no longer go to school. Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin later won lawsuits against several press organs who, among other things, had violated victim protection and the press code and had committed defamation. Today Spiess-Hegglin heads the association #Netzcourage, which is committed to combating hate on the web and advising victims. Such excesses are by no means gender-specific. Just look in the USA at Republican MP Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wants to shoot colleagues from the Democratic Party and compares protective masks against the corona virus with Jewish stars.
The lurid headlines at the time, the Swiss “sex scandal” turned into a veritable press scandal, based on which the patterns of tabloid reporting, but also the economic background, especially in the digital sector, can be shown. Briefly it comes up in the film: Web media aim to get as many page views – clicks – as possible. Care and truth are no longer primary virtues. This applies to the Swiss excesses, but has also long been the case on a small scale and is expressed in the search engine optimized use of keywords and terms. At the same time, journalism as a commodity loses its value.
“Strong women: women and media” (3sat): trivialities in abundance
An equally current and important topic in terms of consumer education. Unfortunately, Rosanna Grüter and Patrizia Laeri do not live up to this in their implementation. Instead of exploring intentions and modes of action, they try to convey their content through personalization. Your film consists mainly of interviews. It goes without saying that Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin can present her view of the events. Other sites, however, do not have their say or only in brief video statements. Significant: Instead of presenting her own research, the author had the journalist Hansi Vogt, who was one of the few serious reports, explain the reactions of her colleagues in the press. Another example of the strange design of the film: Patrizia Laeri is shown ringing Vogt’s doorbell, offering tea, picking herbs, and pouring hot water. Unimportant things that do not belong in a report.
Even worse: Laeri and Grüter keep themselves in the picture, even interviewing each other. Ask Grüters to Laeri: “What are your feelings about meeting Jolanda now?”
To the broadcast
“Strong women: Women and the media”, Wednesday, 2.6., 3sat, 9:00 pm
The feelings of a reporter are not only insignificant, they violate the journalistic principle of neutrality. Problematic: Patrizia Laeri is not the only reporter here, but also a protagonist, a questionable mixture, who brings her own experiences, even private things such as recordings of her children into the film. Or says that she paints when she is upset. The director Grüter shows her friend in her studio at the easel. Which doesn’t really help the film in terms of content.
“Strong women: Women and the media” (3sat): Nice pictures from Barcelona
The film shown below with the subtitle “Women and Pornography” is no better. In this, Patrizia Laeri confesses a lack of expertise. Honorable. The job of journalists is now precisely to find out more. But here, too, Grüter and Laeri only use a few interlocutors for guidance. Erica Lust, who lives and works in Barcelona, who has her own company and very successfully produces porn from a feminist stance, is without a doubt an interesting and meaningful person to provide information. But she is by no means the first and only producer in this industry. Women also produce pornographic products that are oriented towards the male gaze. Their motivation, self-image and attitude to their work would have been an essential addition. Example: The now seventy-five year old British woman Suze Randall, who has gone from being a model and supporting actress for Eric Rohmer to a glamor photographer and her own porn empire. Whether your films or those of your daughter Holly Randall, who is also active in the profession, differ from those of the male producers? One could have looked up and questioned the two who are not exactly reluctant to be public. Instead, you see Patrizia Laeri walking on Barcelona’s boulevards. Not particularly productive for the interested public. (Harald Keller)
