Media
Women
Never
before have women been as prominent in the German media as they are today, particularly on
television as political talk show hostesses. Frank Schirrmacher, co-publisher of the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, shares a few thoughts on the phenomenon of women in the
media
By Frank
Schirrmacher, Germany
A computer voice can be
heard in US Air Force fighter planes. It issues warnings, orders, analyses and
transcriptions. It is a female voice, and its frequency has been exactly calculated.
Psychiatric studies have shown that, when subjected to a certain degree of stress, people
react most reliably to women's voices. Perhaps they feel it's their mother talking to
them, or their lover or wife. A few years ago Gudrun Schyman, chairperson of the Swedish
Left Party, published her memoirs under the title "Gudrun Schyman, Person, Woman,
Mummy, Lover, Party Boss." She was quoted as saying that the people knew that she was
all these things and that she knows what's what. We seem to have arrived at a point in
social evolution where society is using this voice to find its bearings - or rather to
avoid losing its bearings.
One sunday evening,
during the 250th edition of the popular TV political discussion programme "Sabine
Christiansen", the CDU politician Friedrich Merz said: "We should first
congratulate you on this programme. You are extremely successful with it in Germany. This
programme determines the political agenda in Germany more than the German Bundestag. That
saddens me, but it is a great success."
We can delete from this
sentence the parts that are evidently pure fawning on the part of a politician. What
remains is a man's unconditional submission to a woman. And the congratulatory gift the
well-wisher offers Ms Christiansen's salon is not only his own person, but an entire
institution, a constitutional body: the Bundestag itself. In an interview about her
programme's anniversary, the hostess had spoken of her powerlessness, modesty and
charitable work. She finds it almost disagreeable that "Sabine Christiansen" has
become a brand name. The "queen's two bodies" speak two completely different
languages: the modest, private Christiansen and the public one who is described on her
homepage, for example, as "the most powerful woman on German television."
Women as hosts
She probably is, too.
Friedrich Merzprobably did exactly the right thing by hurriedly capitulating, like the
princes used to capitulate before Catherine the Great. The woman (whose first appearance
in the "Tagesthemen" news programme many years ago was likened to that of the
children's program "Sendung mit der Maus") is a symbol of a profound social
change. Not many men have understood what is going on, although cries for help from
dumbfounded managers and bewildered patriarchs are becoming more and more frequent.
Although men still dominate political commentary in the Federal Republic of Germany, it is
women who control the communication of politics. As the political opinion-forming process
has become more discursive, the TV stations have hired more women as "hosts."
The talk show presenters Sabine Christiansen Sandra Maischberger and Maybrit Illner,and
the anchorwomen of the main news programmes on public television, Anne Will and Marietta
Slomka, are without doubt the most influential conveyers of political information on
television. You don't have to be a feminist to see that this success story, which would
have seemed most unlikely just a few years ago, is a conscious decision on the part of
society. Society is evidently in the process of redistributing power, because not only the
discourses are changing, but also the demands made on communicators. This operation is
very much more comprehensive than people realize. The decisive means of production for
mass education and the shaping of political ideas in Germany are now in the hands of
women. To varying degrees, women have taken over responsibility for huge areas of the
media, employing complicated strategies occasionally accompanied by courtly intrigues.
Accumulation of
power
The biggest television
operator in Europe, the biggest magazine publishing house, the biggest book publishing
house in the world, one of the five biggest music corporations in the world, in short the
Bertelsmann group, has been run by a woman, Liz Mohns, for some time now. She has been
using the last few months since the dismissal of the former chief executive Thomas
Middelhoff to build up her power in the group. The biggest newspaper publishing company in
Europe belongs to Friede Springer, who has been consolidating her power over several years
with great resolution and decisiveness. In the Frankfurt-based Suhrkamp publishing house,
one of the centres of the German media, the publisher's widow Ulla Berkéwicz seems to be
taking over power, and with it responsibility for authors who have a defining influence on
every intellectual in this country: Adorno and Brecht, Habermas and Enzensberger, Bloch
and Benjamin. In the future, no book can be really successful in Germany without the
recommendation of a woman called Elke Heidenreich, whose first TV programmes far
outperformed Marcel ReichRanicki's "Das Literarische Quartett." Altogether,
therefore, almost eighty percent of the media are in female hands. Most of what people
think today will have previously passed through the assembly lines of these women. And it
was more than just a wellcalculated sound bite when Sandra Maischberger greeted Liz Mohn
with the phrase: "Hello, boss!"
Twilight of the
patriarchs
Never before in its
history has Germany experienced such an accumulation of female power. It is also pretty
sensational. We know from the period at the turn of the 19th/20th century how women can,
as custodians of a heritage, exert an unusual influence over people's minds: Cosima Wagner
belongs to this line, as does Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. What seems to be happening
these days, however, is that the Cosima effect - the endless doings and dealings of a
black-dressed, unapproachable widow - is beginning to turn upside down. The twilight of
the patriarchs is upon us, and the demand for them is declining. Women are taking over the
role of mediators, indeed the power in a disintegrating society.
Women as mediators
Arnold Gehlen once
predicted: "Small civilized peoples, or peoples all of whose bones have been smashed,
look to find cover; they are drawn towards insurance, medical insurance cards, forms of
sexual libertinism and moral lectures to the outside world. Yet precisely this atmosphere
fits very well with the inner needs of woman." What he meant was that the more
civilized a society becomes, and the more complex and subtle the need to solve insoluble
conflicts without aggression, the more such a society places its faith in women as
mediators; indeed, it even delegates economic power to them. We might well be approaching
such a situation today. However, if this happens, says Arnold Gehlen, society will change
once again: "Then, Clytemnestra and Judith enter the scene, Antigone and Gallia
Placidia, Catherine and Charlotte Corday - and show the men how to be receptive and
committed." Then one no longer needs compliments from Mr Merz.
Maybrit Illner
Politics fascinates
Berlin-born Maybrit Illner, because it is all about "competing for the best
idea." She says there is something both intellectual and sporting about this. Which
is ideal for the 38-yearold presenter, because she began her television career in the
sports section of the GDR station DFF. She has been with the ZDF since 1992, starting as a
presenter and later taking over the daily breakfast show "morgenmagazin." She
has been presenting "Berlin Mitte," a political talk show, since 1999. http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/19/0,1872,1021235,00.html
Sabine
Christiansen
She is the First Lady
among German female TV personalities. For ten years Ms Christiansen presented the
Tagesthemen," a daily news programme focusing on "today's main issues."
Since 1997 her name has become the brand name for one of the most successful TV formats in
Germany. The 45-year-old presenter's guests have included Tony Blair, Colin Powell and
recently Hillary Clinton. Together with Maybrit Illner she hosted the first German TV duel
of the top election candidates in 2002. http://www.sabine-christiansen.de/
Marietta Slomka
Born in Cologne in
1969, she was almost completely unknown to viewers in 2001 when unexpectedly she took over
as main hostess of the "heutejournal" news magazine. This was the first time
that a woman had taken over this prominent news job since the 1980s. Today Marietta Slomka
is a "household face" on German television. Occasionally she even dares to ask
politicians really simple questions. In this way she also seeks to awaken young people's
interest in "news with background." http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/0/0,1872,1021856,00.html
Liz Mohn
In 2002 the "lady
in the background" became "Bertelsmann's strong woman": Liz Mohn, who had
started working for Bertelsmann as a telephone switchboard operator in the 1950s, took
over from her husband Reinhard Mohn because of his ill health; he had made Bertelsmann
Europe's biggest media group. The 62-year-old Ms Mohn sits on the supervisory board and is
the family spokeswoman in the Bertelsmann management company, which controls 75% of the
group's voting rights. http://www.rasscass.com/templ/te_bio.php?PID=1188&RID=1
Iris Radisch
She is regarded as one
of the most important minds in German literary criticism. Since 1990 her voice has been
lending weight to the reviews in the renowned weekly paper "Die Zeit." She also
presents several cultural discussion programmes. In the cult programme "Das
Literarische Quartett" she stood up to Germany's high priest of literature Marcel
ReichRanicki. Today she alternates every week with Gert Scobel presenting the literary
magazine programme "bücher, bücher" at Hessischer Rundfunk. http://www.hr-online.de/fs/buecherbuecher/buch/radisch.html
Gabi Bauer
She was one of the
friendliest faces at the "Tagesthemen." Gabi Bauer (41)was always calm and
unaffected when she presented the ARD's main evening news programme. She had started her
career in radio, and it was not until 1995 that she came to television. In the space of
only two years she had taken over the position of news front-woman. In 2001 she took
maternity leave, gave birth to twins - and was back within the year with a discussion
programme of her own. http://www.daserste.de/gabibauer/
Tina Mendelsohn
Before 39-year-old Tina
Mendelsohn presented "Kulturzeit" for the first time for the
German-Austrian-Swiss channel 3sat two years ago, the name she had made for herself in the
TV sector had been largely as a film author with reports and documentations. Today she is
one of Kulturzeit's four regular presenters. Tina Mendelsohn lives with her husband and
two children in London and also does freelance work for the British television stations
BBC and Channel 4. http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://www.3sat.de/kulturzeit/redaktion/44027/
Anne Will
Cologne-born Anne Will
originally wanted to do radio rather than television. She didn't like all the fuss and
bother involved with the camera work. But things turned out differently, and she became
the first woman to present the ARD's "Sportschau" in 1999. In 2001 Anne Will
took over from Gabi Bauer at the ARD's main news programme "Tagesthemen." The
37-year-old sees her strengths in expressing "complicated issues in simple
words." http://www.hr-online.de/fs/hoechstpersoenlich/021206_anne_will.html
Friede Springer
Friede Springer (61)
would rather be called "principal shareholder" than "publisher." Her
late husband, the powerful Axel Caesar Springer, was the publisher, she says. It had been
his wish that she, a former nanny, would systematically prepare to take over one day as
heiress of the Springer group. With smiling reserve she advanced to become the boss of the
biggest newspaper publishing house in Europe - and has proved that she can hold her own in
a hostile environment.
http://www.rasscass.com/templ/te_bio.php?PID=1702&RID=1
Elke
Heidenreich
The ZDF's new book
programme "Lesen!" (Read!) had only been on the air a couple of times when Elke
Heidenreich "made" her first best-seller: one tip from her and, the next day,
sales figures shot up. Elke Heidenreich became famous in a sketch role as "Frau
Stratmann." She has been a radio journalist and a TV talk show hostess - but
basically she is a writer. Among other things she has written two extremely successful
collections of stories which have been highly praised by the critics. Lesen! http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/20/0,1872,2042868,00.html
Sandra
Maischberger
She is one of the most
experienced interviewers on German television. She started asking people questions in
front of the camera at the age of 22. Today, the 37-year-old invites the "person of
the day" into the studio five times a week. With a gentle tone combined with
obstinate determination she manages to draw more out of her guests than they really wanted
to say. In September she also took over old talk master Alfred Biolek's programme slot at
the ARD.
(Courtesy:
Deutschland Magazine, Embassy of Germany, Kathmandu) |
