<\/p>\n
The VW-Foundation has recently started a series of lectures called \u201eeye witness, translators, contemporary witness: German foreign correspondent from the 1970ies until today\u201c in cooperation with the Leibniz-Institut f\u00fcr Europ\u00e4ische Geschichte (IEG).<\/p>\n
Incoming the two hosts of the evening, Bernhard Gi\u00dfibl und Johannes Paulmann of IEG, are getting to the point by stating that \u201cinstead of researching on the objective it should be researching with the objective\u201d at German Universities and institutes in the future. Together with Ulrike Freitag, director of the center for modern orient, and Thomas Aders, foreign correspondent in Cairo, the team tries to find a reasonable definition of this statement. It soon becomes obvious through the guest\u2019s input \u2013 Ulrich Kienzle had to cancel the event because of illness \u2013 that the will to well-balanced reporting or cooperative research has its limits.<\/p>\n
Reports stemming from German media on hot spots in the Middle East, such as from Irak, Syria or Egypt, is often controlled by monotonic choice of topic and focusses too much on politics instead of society development. Background reports are (due to shortage of time) scarce goods: \u201cThere is more being produced than shown\u201d, says Aders. \u201cMany times TV stations only show what happened between yesterday and today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being asked about the research conditions within the Arabic countries, Freitag reports on her experience with members of the Syrian secret service: \u201cFortunately\u201d, she describes, \u201cthey were quite stupid\u201d. Unfortunately there was no chance to pose questions to the lectures\u2019 participants. However, it became clear that there is no such thing as a well-balanced reporting even in the German media. There are definitely many interesting topics on the mind of German foreign correspondents and German researchers that could provide the TV consumer with a more realistic and more detailed picture on what is going on. However, obstacles to the career path often stand in one\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
Being asked what he would do if he\u2019d granted a wish Aders answered: \u201eWhat I would do is to learn Arabic acceptably\u201c.<\/p>\n