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Nobody sells politics as well as Robert Habeck at the moment. The Federal Minister of Economics is Germany’s most popular politicianand that is obviously not due to the economic situation, but to his Instagram-Videos – or, as we call it, his “political style”. Habeck explains in a particularly approachable, reflective and emotional way how he weighs up the decision to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine. He is celebrated for it, in social media, but also in the classic ones. For the “world”, for example, he would be “the better chancellor”.
It’s an absurd situation: It’s in the nature of things that only the future can tell whether he’s doing good politics. But clearly he is good at communicating. In short: journalists are actually celebrating Robert Habeck for doing their job better than they do.
The author
Michalis Pantelouris is a journalist and author. Among other things, he headed the editing of the Joko Winterscheidt magazine “JWD”, was deputy creative director of “GQ” and is creative consultant for the new ProSieben show “Zervakis und Opdenhövel live”. He irregularly annotates the media world for over-media.
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There is whole article, which are nothing but summaries of his Instagram posts. And regardless of how you feel about the content, you can say that it has probably never been so easy for a German politician to get his message spread.
Robert Habeck can’t do anything about that, it’s not a criticism of him. He communicates well, and he’s allowed to. It’s actually very beneficial. But the uncritical acceptance of statements by politicians is obviously not the job of journalists.
What would Tina Hassel do?
The journalist Henning Sußebach gave it on Twitter the interesting thought about it: “It bothers me that we journalists here celebrate Robert #Habeck|’s really good explanation of his politics – a communicative achievement that did not come about through journalistic means.” Followed by the questions: “Would Tina Hassel have let him finish? Would that be right – or not her job? (I really have questions, also for myself, whether as a journalist or as a media user.)”
I have no way of reading Tina Hassel’s mind, but I can at least answer some of the questions. Because the way journalists deal with Robert Habeck poses a real problem.
First of all, it’s a simple problem. You only have to exchange the name, then you recognize it immediately: Nobody in even halfway reputable German medicines would…
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