Pandemic: Journalism and Corona: Dangerous symbioses

Since Corona at the latest, journalism has come to an end. There is no recovery in sight. The most recent example: In December, shortly after publication, the MDR deleted a video article about contamination of the mRNA vaccine from Biontech-Pfizer. The microbiologist and immunologist Brigitte König found foreign DNA in the vaccine in her laboratory – well beyond the officially defined limits.

The accusation is not new. Various researchers have expressed concern in the past. American professor and microbiologist Phillip Buckhaults explained his concerns at a hearing in the South Carolina Senate in September 2023. He analyzed the BioNtech-Pfizer vaccines and discovered DNA. That surprised and alarmed him. The feared side effects include: cancer, autoimmune diseases, cardiac arrest, damage to genetic material.

At the same time, other voices also had their say in the MDR report: for example, the molecular biologist Emanuel Wyler from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine. He considers damage to be unlikely and referred to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the German federal institute for vaccines and biomedical drugs in Langen, as the examining authority. However, the Paul Ehrlich Institute wrote to the MDR: “Parameters such as the residual DNA content in the vaccine are only tested experimentally by the manufacturer.” The Biontech company itself told the MDR: “The Pfizer-Biontech Covid-19 vaccine is not contaminated with DNA.” The Federal Ministry of Health also doubted the test results, but apparently had no data of its own to offer.

The MDR then sought a second opinion on its own and asked over 20 university and private laboratories to have the vaccines examined again. Result: »We get rejections or no response from everyone. So we are unable to have a DNA analysis carried out again independently.” The editorial team was also “unable to conclusively answer” the question of “whether the suspected DNA contamination can cause damage.”

Why was the post deleted? In response to a request from the Berliner Zeitung, the MDR initially informed that there had been many questions about the program that needed to be examined. The result of this review will be made transparent. But then a few days later the station only briefly announced: After a “careful internal review” it was clear that the station’s “journalistic due diligence criteria” had not been adhered to.

Shortly afterwards, MDR published a long interview with Emanuel Wyler and a virologist. The two agree. There is no controversy, but rather a series of reassurances in technical jargon. The deleted post was prepared in a more understandable way and – attention, journalistic due diligence criteria! – more balanced.

Instead of ensuring transparency and education, the MDR had a columnist reprimand his colleagues with schoolmasterly condescension: “Okay friends, if you don’t know whether the claims you’re spreading are valid, and if you don’t know whether they Then, if they were valid and relevant, then you shouldn’t spread these claims in the first place, especially not when it’s a matter of life and death.” The open questions at the end of the deleted post could also serve as an invitation for further research and be able to understand discussions. But that doesn’t seem desirable.

At the same time, it doesn’t help much to get upset about a single station or public broadcasting. This is about something fundamental. Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, the public debate has slipped into regressive patterns: there is either only good or evil. Or things that still need to be clarified are hastily assumed to be true or false. This is not only evident, but also in the press: controversial reporting is increasingly being replaced by moral instruction (read the good!) and fact-checking (hear the truth!). Now no one has anything against the truth, but in the case of fact checkers one would have to ask which facts and truths appear suspicious and in need of verification and which do not. Just think of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach’s claim that the vaccination has “no side effects.” In any case, reality is often more ambiguous and knowledge is more uncertain than the fact checkers’ true-false scheme suggests.

You can also see this in the reporting on the deleted MDR contribution. Instead of dealing with the content, pointing finger editors and truth keepers pounce on Brigitte König as a person. The “FAZ” is upset about “the fact that a microbiologist presented as an independent researcher spoke alongside quacks at anti-vaccination events.” The MDR “did not make the protagonists’ conflicts of interest transparent.” In general, there are many “inconsistencies”. Other media also see their journalistic mission as being more about dismantling the protagonist of the article than addressing the content. None of the commentators are interested in Phillip Buckhaults, who urgently calls for further research.

Now it is commendable when journalists investigate “conflicts of interest” and “inconsistencies.” But then please refer to pandemic policy in its entirety and where these terms are really appropriate. For example, the WHO, which today, unlike in the 1970s, is no longer financed through compulsory contributions from the member states, but 85% from voluntary contributions. They are often earmarked so that the WHO cannot decide on the funds itself. One of the largest donors is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Exactly the foundation that also invested in the company Biontech. Anyone who thinks about conflicts of interest now is a conspiracy theorist!

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also has to deal with bickering because its staff likes to switch sides. Today a consultant for the pharmaceutical industry, tomorrow a bureaucrat in the EU authority. Or vice versa, both are worth it. Perhaps that also explains why the EMA only stated in a letter in November 2023 that the corona vaccines would not prevent the virus from being passed on and that there was no data on transmissibility from the start. The EMA also writes that serious side effects can occur, which is why “all safety information should be carefully examined before a vaccination is administered or recommended” and that it will “continue to provide transparent information about the approved uses” and strive to ” to eliminate misunderstandings.” Why didn’t the EMA become more active before or during the vaccination campaign? A simple statement would have been enough, something like this: “The ›Pandemic of the unvaccinated‹ doesn’t exist; Vaccination is not a matter of solidarity, at best you protect yourself. The 2-G rules and the whole agitation against unvaccinated people have no scientific basis.

Of course, the fact checkers could have checked the facts themselves. But perhaps it is worth thinking about conflicts of interest here too. All the national and international fact-checking networks write a lot about transparency and independence on their websites. But: Regardless of whether they are an international or local network, they are generally not financially independent. The German fact checkers from Correctiv, for example, are part of the International Fact Checking Network of the US Poynter Institute. This institute receives money from Google, Meta and Microsoft, among others. Although Correctiv is largely financed through donations, it also receives money from the state (Federal Center for Civic Education, State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia), from companies such as Google or Telekom and from foundations such as the Luminate – Omidyar Network Foundation of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. In any case, billionaires who want to do “good” often get involved in areas of society that shouldn’t actually be dependent on their money.

These various private-public partnerships wage a well-sounding fight against disinformation, viruses, climate change and everything else that goes with what is good and true. In fact, this symbiosis of state and capital is slowly privatizing and destroying everything that stands in its way: democratic control, free press, public infrastructure. A free press worthy of the name would have to criticize these symbioses instead of working towards them.