from Peter Löcke
In August 2021, Markus Langemann an exciting interview with media scientist Professor Dr. Michael Meyen from the LMU Munich. For me as a listener, it was one of the most interesting conversations of recent years. An interview with a whole treasure trove of insights. It encouraged me to do my own research. The statements and assessments made by Michael Meyen stood up to scrutiny. The interview began as follows.
Markus Langemann: Professor Meyen. As the holder of a professorship, you are a civil servant. You are paid by the state. How openly can you talk to me now?
Michael Meyen: As openly as I can, based on my knowledge and conscience. I think that the state pays me to name the things that I find out in my scientific research, to name the things that I think are important for society as a whole. So I don't put any limits on myself. I don't have scissors in my head. Of course I don't know everything. Of course I see things in a limited way because of my biography. So I do see limits, but not limits set by the donor, because I always assume that this is the task for which I get my money.
In retrospect, Professor Meyen's introductory answer takes on a bizarre note. Were his views too naive and optimistic? Was his answer even wrong because it is not the job of a civil servant media scientist to scrutinize the media landscape? Is a civil servant like Meyen allowed to question his own sponsor, i.e. the state?
What is certain is that the professor is confronted with more than just barriers today. This is how the leading media world, the very world that Michael Meyen has been researching and criticizing for years, will judge him in April 2023.
Controversial pompous professor! Enemy of the state! Publisher of a secure extremist lateral thinker magazine! Here is an example Article in the Frankfurter Rundschau linked.
Are all these accusations justified? Are the accusations substantive criticism or merely a defamation campaign designed to discredit and silence an unpopular scientist? To form an opinion, you have to hear both sides.
As a journalist, especially as an editor, you sometimes catch yourself in a deeply human fear. This fear is called contact guilt. It is the fear of being discredited and defamed yourself because you offer a stage to a supposedly wrong person. If you give in to this fear, barriers are created. The much-cited inner scissors in the head arise. Professor Dr. Meyen did not have this fear as a civil servant. What would it say about the Club of Clear Words if we gave in to this fear?
So are we giving Meyen a stage? Yes. We are doing this out of conviction. We are not doing it to promote Prof. Dr. Meyen. We are doing it so that he can speak openly, while other publications only talk about him. As a reader, make up your own mind.
Audiatur et altera pars.
Habitus of arrogance
by Prof. Dr. Michael Meyen
Journalists are no longer curious, they only ask what they think they already know. A documentary.
At the end of March, the leading media launched a campaign against Michael Meyen, who has held a professorship in communication studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany's leading university, for more than 20 years. The campaign is aimed at destroying Meyen's academic reputation and at the same time devaluing all his activities in the counter-public sphere. University and extra-parliamentary opposition: what actually belongs together must not grow together. Beyond the articles, the interview requests to the academic reveal that journalists are not interested in knowledge at all. The result of the "research" is a foregone conclusion.
I actually agree with Dieter Nuhr: let's talk about what's really important - not about me. I'm breaking this principle here to reveal a pattern that leads to the roots of all the problems I discuss here in my column *Media Reality* every two weeks: the leading media are not interested in reality, but invent a world in which critics of journalism, government and the prevailing ideology are sidelined.
I don't want to write much about the "case" itself. There is a short video from March 17 in which Anselm Lenz and Hendrik Sodenkamp welcome me as co-editors of the weekly newspaper *Demokratischer Widerstand*. In a few sentences, I explain why printed matter is important, especially in the digital age. For our collaboration, we agreed on the formula "protective hand, admonishing word". Translated: If the newspaper were to come under attack, I would stand by the makers and also tell them every few weeks what I like and what I don't like. The *Demokratische Widerstand* lists me as co-editor on the front page in the issues of March 25 and April 1 and explains in the following week why we have severed this connection again. The reactions from the leading media include Paul Schreyer has been taken up in *Multipolar*. The *NachDenkSeiten* have also published many Letters to the editor after they published a few particularly bizarre "reports" about me.
The fact that I am refraining from going into detail here is also due to a certain fatigue. Almost three years ago, I wrote about the first public attack in the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* by Sebastian Krass, who will play a role in a moment, in my blog Media reality with a long statement. 2021 is in the same blog open letter to BR director Katja Wildermuth was published and in 2022 an edition of an annotated Piecewhich *Zeit Campus* had entitled "A professor drifts off". I mention these three texts firstly because they contain my view of everything that has now been brought back into the public eye. Secondly, any "journalist" who wants to look into my "case" would have a source here - first-hand, so to speak.
Journalism involves engaging with reality with an open mind and possibly discovering something there that you didn't expect and that perhaps even contradicts your own preconceptions. I put the word journalist in quotation marks because this attitude has only shone through once in the many emails I have received from editorial offices across the country in recent weeks - written by a retiree who works for the Bonn-based *General-Anzeiger*. I didn't reply to this gentleman either, because in the past such attempts were always turned around in my mouth and merely used as proof that I had been spoken to and therefore fulfilled the quality criterion of also listening to the other side. It will become clear in a moment that there is no question of wanting to listen. I will limit myself to a few "journalists", as dpa, *Spiegel online*, *Bayern 1* and others have merely jumped on the bandwagon of their colleagues. The first request came on March 23 at 6:08 pm, written by Patrick Guyton, born in 1967, who works as a freelancer in Munich, but contacted me as "taz-Medienautor Bayern" and "taz-Medienredaktion" with a Berlin address:
*Dear Prof. Meyen, I am currently researching your journalistic and political activities. I have the following questions: Can you confirm that you have now become the third editor of the newspaper "Demokratischer Widerstand" alongside Anselm Lenz and Hendrik Sodenkamp? Journalists should be professionally trained, i.e. they should be masters of their craft. And they should be independent and committed to ethical values. In your opinion, is this no longer the case? Have you noticed a certain radicalization in the development of your political attitudes? And can you say whether there has been a trigger for this, such as Merkel's refugee policy or the start of the measures against the coronavirus pandemic? With kind regards* and please provide some answers
What do you answer? Patrick Guyton's research had obviously not gone very far that evening. The video with Sodenkamp, Lenz and Meyen was online. The then current DW edition named four editors (in addition to my two video interlocutors Maria-Sophia Antonulas and Giorgio Agamben). He obviously hadn't read anything by me either. There is no other explanation for questions two and three. Guyton appears again straight away. First, however, there are two emails that arrived in my inbox within four minutes (!) on March 28. Martin Lejeune made the start at 5.50 pm:
*Dear Professor Dr. Meyen, as a freelance journalist I am writing an article about the fact that you are the new editor of "Democratic Resistance". Would you like to talk to me on the phone?
I didn't want to, because this "journalist" had also written to Philine Conrad, head of the "Kunst ist Leben" festival, where I was due to perform in Oderbruch on April 2. He referred to me there as the "editor of the right-wing extremist periodical" DW. Quote: "As a freelance journalist, I will be writing a report on this. I would therefore like to know from you to what extent right-wing extremist content fits in with the values and culture of your festival?" Philine Conrad spoke to him on the phone. The label "right-wing extremism" is a death sentence if you are dependent on public funding. Lejeune did not come to the festival. Nevertheless, he wrote a "report" on April 2 and sent it to the Ministry of Culture, stamp included.
Four minutes after Martin Lejeune, Alexander Spöri, "regional editor in Munich at t-online", contacted me on March 28. His email was cc'd to my secretary, the office of the university president and the LMU press department:
*Ladies and gentlemen, Prof. Meyen, according to the latest issue of "Demokratischer Widerstand", Prof. Meyen is co-editor of the magazine. Anselm Lenz, who is close to the conspiracy theorist scene, is one of the people behind the medium. The "Union Druckerei", which also prints other newspapers that are already being monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, also prints "Demokratischer Widerstand". Can Prof. Meyen please confirm that he is the publisher of this newspaper and explain what prompted him to do so? Can Prof. Meyen or the university confirm that 200 copies were delivered to Prof. Meyen's workplace? There are already other sources for this. With the request for feedback by 10 pm*
I know: civil servants are always on duty. If an email arrives after work, you have to answer it before you go to bed. What else can you say about this request? A "conspiracy theorist scene" then. And a print shop that does dark things in plain sight. DW does not appear in any reports on the protection of the constitution. Spöri has the exclusive right to say that it is being "observed". Who knows how the wires are being pulled. I'm still looking for the 200 DW copies. The delivery was apparently sent with the sources, although it's still not entirely clear to me what would have been criminal or even a threat to the state. Even students have the right to obtain comprehensive information.
On March 30 at 12:06 p.m., the ping-pong finally reached Sebastian Krass, my old friend and copper engraver. Three years ago he had caught me on my cell phone. I've since got a new number so I don't have to worry about people like him:
*Dear Prof. Meyen, I have just been unable to reach you by telephone, so I am contacting you by this means. T-Online reports that you have become publisher of the weekly newspaper. "Demokratischer Widerstand" itself reports that you will also be writing a weekly media column from now on. I have the following questions: Why did you become the editor and author of "Demokratischer Widerstand"? How would you describe the content orientation of the medium? What relevance does it have in your view? Among others, Götz Kubitschek, who is known as an activist of the "New Right", has written for the medium. Do you see this as a problem? If not, why not? If so, in what way? We are researching the topic on a daily basis and have also requested a statement from the LMU. In this respect, I would ask you to answer the questions by 4 p.m. today, Thursday*.
Just under four hours: That is apparently what a leading media editorial office considers acceptable. In his text, Krass then refers to T-Online, cites his text from back then and uses two commonplace quotes to create a conflict of authority. A university spokeswoman referred to freedom of opinion and Markus Blume, Minister of Science in Bavaria, to the limits that the constitution places on the freedom of research and teaching. Two statements that have nothing to do with DW or what I usually do. Sebastian Krass interprets the minister's statement in the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* as follows: "These are words that are to be understood as an announcement to LMU boss Huber to do more against Meyen than he has done so far." In plain language: A journalist is constructing a contradiction here that did not exist or does not exist in reality, and is thus building up pressure on the university. He writes me a new email on March 31 at 9.39 am:
*Dear Prof. Meyen, it could be that your involvement with "Democratic Resistance" is on our minds again today. We would also like to hear your views on the subject. I would therefore like to ask you the following question: How do you rate the words of Science Minister Markus Blume in our report ("The freedom to teach does not exempt you from loyalty to the constitution. It goes without saying that professors with civil servant status must be committed to the free democratic constitution and stand up for it. There is no place for extremist ideas at Bavarian universities.")? Are you committed to the free democratic basic order and do you stand up for it? If so, to what extent? And is your involvement in "Demokratischer Widerstand" compatible with this in view of the authors active there and the content disseminated? If so, to what extent? Are you loyal to the Bavarian constitution and the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany? Do you consider "Demokratischer Widerstand" to be a publication that disseminates extremist ideas? If not, why not? If yes, in what way? Do you see any reason to question or end your involvement with "Demokratischer Widerstand"? If yes, in what way? If no, why not?*
What follows is what he wrote to me the day before (Götz Kubitschek and so on). Answers: please by 3 pm. My first association: flights to the USA, combined with the question (analogous): Are you planning a terrorist attack? Do you have the necessary weapons with you? If not, do you at least want to sell drugs? Second association: the GDR with all its constant professions of unbreakable friendship with all peace-loving nations and especially with the victorious and glorious Soviet Union and world peace. On March 27, 2002 (a day I will never forget), I swore an oath on the Bavarian constitution and I don't know what should release me from it. How dare you, Sebastian Krass?
A rhetorical question, I know. This "journalist" writes about his second article on April 1 (!): "Professor Meyen: A case for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution". On the same day, his colleague Moritz Baumstieger claims in a commentary on page 4 that Bavarian constitutional protectors could be sitting in my next lecture on April 18 and advises the wimps, just like the students, to sit down in the English Garden and read all the "questionable" things I have written "in blogs and books" in the sun. Baumstieger already knows the result of this research: "Der Quark" is written above his text.
I will complain to the German Press Council about the *Süddeutsche Zeitung*. If I understood Bernd Huber, the president of the LMU, correctly on April 3, the university asked the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution whether they had any information about the DW. The fact that it gave in to the pressure brought to bear by Lejeune, Spöri and Krass is one side of the coin. The other is journalism that distorts reality for a headline and destroys people in the process. Moritz Baumstieger will disregard his own recommendation two weeks later, but I'll save that punchline for last.
First, as promised, back to Patrick Guyton, who writes to me again on March 30 at 10:27 a.m., now as a "taz author":
*Dear Prof. Meyen, University President Huber wrote in a statement to me that there had been a complaint from the student council in the past. According to the institute, there had already been "a clarifying discussion between Professor Meyen and the students". Can you tell me what the outcome was?*
Insight number one: "Journalists" like Patrick Guyton drive institutions in front of them with the knowledge that nobody wants negative publicity. Insight number two: Patrick Guyton still hasn't read. The "clarifying conversation" was two years ago and is documented in my old blog. On April 3 at 8:37 pm, Guyton apparently found a key witness or finally read my old texts:
*Dear Prof. Meyen, while researching your work at the IfKW, I and the taz received statements from students. This is an opportunity for you to comment on this: In the lecture in the winter semester 2020/21, students repeatedly felt that your statements regarding corona were trivializing. You are said to have said that this should not be taken so seriously and that the figures, such as the published incidence figures, should not be taken so seriously. You are said to have said that with the high incidence figures published, the country of Belgium should already be extinct. It is reported about the lecture the following year that you repeatedly criticized the mask requirement in force at the time. You have until tomorrow evening (Tuesday) to make a statement.*
It is April 2023, and I am documenting this email for all those who believe that the coronavirus pandemic is over and that there is some understanding among those who have supported or even fueled this panic. I could also link my institute's statement here. Critics will apparently be persecuted to the end of their days even if the majority were once wrong.
On April 17, the FAZ finally got in touch. I had already begun to worry. The man for the rough stuff is called Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup. His profile picture shows him with a beard, and the text says that he has "received numerous awards" for his research. Well, yes. It sounds like that in his email:
*Dear Mr. Meyen, I am a science editor at the FAZ / FAS and am currently researching accusations that you are spreading misinformation about corona, discrediting the media (by using terms such as "lying press" or statements such as "fact checkers are propaganda machines masquerading as journalism"), spreading anti-Semitic narratives or promoting right-wing extremist tendencies with your temporary co-editorship of the magazine "Demokratischer Widerstand". I have the following questions about this: the magazine's authors include Jürgen Elsässer, who is also editor-in-chief of the magazine "Compact", which is regarded as right-wing populist, and Götz Kubitschek, who is one of the co-founders of the "Institute for State Policy", which has been classified as right-wing extremist by the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution. What is your position on this and why did you work for the "Democratic Resistance" - and to what extent do you want to continue this? Why did you become co-editor of the magazine "Demokratischer Widerstand", and to what extent are you still co-editor? If you are no longer co-editor: Since when are you no longer co-editor, and for what reason are you no longer so? What is your position on Ken Jebsen, who has been accused of anti-Semitism and whose portal KenFM has been classified as a suspected case by the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution? To what extent is it true that you regard him as a professional journalist? What is your opinion on the fact that the LMU has called in the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in relation to your activities for "Democratic Resistance"? Please get back to me by Wednesday*.
As I said, I answered all these "questions" long ago - and in a way that anyone can read. If you still don't believe that journalism has lost its curiosity as well as its interest in the truth, follow me to my lecture on April 18. Moritz Baumsteiger, the man who turned me into a quark producer in the SZ, is actually sitting there - albeit without registering with me and without asking me personally whether he had heard correctly and whether I had long since ceased to be DW editor. Whereby: Baumstieger heard nothing at all. His picture was fixed beforehand. On the way back to the editorial office, he writes me an e-mail:
*Dear Professor Meyen, Moritz Baumstieger here from the SZ - I have just listened to your lecture at IfKW and am writing a short text about it for the SZ. I have a brief question: if I understood you correctly, the editorship of "Demokratischer Widerstand" was only for two issues and is now dormant or has ended, is that correct? I would be pleased to receive a short answer*.
I had a four-hour seminar right after my lecture. Baumsteiner's e-mail arrived at 2.07 pm. His Text was online at 17:29. In the teaser I am "editor of a lateral thinker newspaper". The rest is - baloney.
English 
German 
Spanish
9 Responses
It's always the same: if you question the mainstream shaped by the so-called leading media with well-founded arguments and analyses, you will be ignored, overblown with the absurd contact guilt argument or defamed. Level 1 (ignore) is out of the question for Prof. Meyen because he is too well known and has dared to express his own fact-based opinion since the beginning of the corona crisis (and that as a scientist!!!) and thus put himself offside in the media. It is similar to Prof. Homburg, who is accused of making statements that are so dangerous because he refers to official figures.
I know Prof. Meyen personally and wrote a long email to Mr. Krass in response to the recent smear campaign by the SZ. He deleted it after 8 days without reading it. Any questions?
Die Journalisten überschätzen Ihre Rolle in der Gesellschaft. Eine zunehmende Anzahl von Menschen fasst das Produkt der schreibenden und berichtenden Zunft nur noch mit spitzen Fingern an. Die Zeiten, in denen so etwas wie Wahrheit in der Tageszeitung stand, sind lange vorbei. Deshalb schrieb mir der Herausgeber einer der großen, den Grünen nahestehenden Tageszeitungen mit am 30.03.2021 folgende Antwort: „Vielen Dank für Ihre anerkennenden Worte; normalerweise kriegen Journalisten immer nur negative Reaktionen. Und danke für die Anhänge, aber ich fürchte, in dieser Debatte geht es nicht um Fakten-, sondern Glaubensfragen“, nachdem ich ihm Aussagen zur Klimathematik gesendet hatte.
—
Professoren sind in Deutschland ihrem Dienstherrn (und den Gebern von Drittmitteln, d.h. der Industrie bzw. Lobbyisten – vgl. Bericht der ZEIT: „Hal Harvey- Der mächtigste Grüne der Welt“ zur Finanzierung unserer Gesellschaft) verpflichtet. Deshalb kann man spätestens seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre der deutschen Wissenschaft nur noch bedingt vertrauen, dem Zeitpunkt, als die Finanzierung der Hochschulen umgestellt wurde. Will man Forschungsergebnisse, beispielsweise über die klimatischen Folgen der Windenergie, zur Kenntnis nehmen, muss man sich längst im Ausland umsehen. Selbst in China scheinen Wissenschaftler diesbezüglich mittlerweile freier agieren zu können als hierzulande, in USA sowieso. Nur so sind solche Studien zu erklären: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/728/texas-wind-farm-affects-land-temperature/
—
In Germany, researchers tell politicians the fairy tales they want to hear: https://twitter.com/RoHeAss/status/1653410877591126020
It has long been clear what is causing the drought in Germany and Europe:
1. displacement of air masses to higher regions, similar to the accumulation of air in mountains and rainfall on the windward side.
2. Zerstörung der Bildungsbedingungen der sog. „Hohen Thermik“, d.h. der Dichteschichtung der unteren Luftmassen, was zu weniger aufsteigenden feuchten Luftmassen und damit weniger gewittrigen Niederschlägen führt.
Both can currently be observed in parallel in the wind energy-infatuated countries of Germany and Spain, with consequences that reach far to the east and thus as far as the Arctic with a mostly prevailing westerly current.
—
Anyone in Germany who wants to pursue science in a field of tension must be financially independent. Very few people are. Prof. Meyen has probably not realized that he has remained true to himself, which unfortunately does not apply to our country and our democracy to the same extent. But our journalists have also not (yet) realized that there have long been other and, within limits, more authentic sources of information - and why Elon Musk has taken over Twitter. In any case, he has understood that there can be no real democracy in the long term without freedom of opinion.
Here is an interesting link to the last statement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqJKAnN0-gM
(Elon Musk in conversation with a BBC reporter about freedom of expression - rarely has the current form of journalism been so ruthlessly unmasked)
From my point of view and according to my understanding, the game designers of the new world are also at work here, selling their brothers and sisters for a Judas wage. I would like to say to Prof. Meyen: Don't worry, don't be afraid. The truth remains true, and life, or in the sense of Erich Fromm, the biophilic, is the basis for us humans on this earth. All the best to you.
Ich habe Herrn Meyen bei einem Vortrag kennengelernt. Eine Ausnahmepersönlichkeit, dem Opportunismus und Konformismus im Gegensatz zu unseren politischen, institutionellen, wissenschaftlichen und journalistischen „Eliten“ fremd ist. Nur durch weitgehenden Ausschluss vom öffentlichen Diskurs von Persönlichkeiten dieses Kalibers auf vorgenannten Gebieten in den vergangenen gut 3 Jahren, bei gleichzeitiger Zensur von Meinungen die dem Narrativ widersprechen, konnte sich diese unglaubliche Politik durchsetzen. Da diese Verbrecher, man kann es nicht anders nennen, im gleichen Boot sitzen und nicht untergehen wollen, wird aus allen Rohren auf diejenigen geschossen, die die Missstände auf den jeweiligen Gebieten offensichtlich machen. Schon allein aus diesem Grund ist es un abdingbar, dass das antidemokratische Verhalten dieser sogenannten Meinungsführer schonungslos aufgearbeitet wird. Herr Meyen scheint mir sehr resilient zu sein und ich hoffe er bleibt der Journalistenausbildung erhalten. Nur seine Art bzw. Verständnis von Journalismus hat Zukunft.
Um diese Form von „Journalismus“ braucht man sich in einer echten Demokratie keine Sorgen zu machen. Ich denke eine Schülerzeitung hätte vielleicht eine höhere Qualität. Schlimm ist die „Hexenjagd“, die hier im Namen einer Moral betrieben wird. So wie der Folterer im finsteren Mittelalter vor seiner schlimmen „Arbeit“ schon das Ergebnis kannte, so wird am Ende heute zwar nicht mehr der fleischliche Körper verbrannt, sondern der gute Ruf, das Ansehen und am Ende die berufliche Existenz.
Joseph Goebbels sagte ein durch Androhung willfährig gemachter Journalist wäre gut, aber sein Ziel sei es Journalisten mit „Haltung“ zu gewinnen. Er wäre glücklich wie Viele es davon heute gibt.
Unglaublich wie der öffentliche „Journalismus“ verkommen ist! Wie kann es sein dass die wirklich eingetretenen Ursachen mit Füssen getreten werden? Es gibt in jeder abgelaufenen Situation mehrere Ansichtspunkte, denn um genau aufzuzeigen was wirklich REAL ist müsste ich auf vier verschiedenen Seiten stehen wenn sich das Ereignis abspielt. (Anschauungspunkt)! Nur kommt ein weiterer Faktor dazu: nämlich wer steht hinter diesem Ereignis (Täter, Geldgeber und geschädigte involvierte Person wie z.B. Prof. Meyen)! Es ist daher auch ein Punkt wie interpretiere ich dieses Ereignis? Für mich ist es wichtig so informiert zu werden wie es der Wahrheit entspricht ohne grosse Propaganda-Trommel!
Nomen est omen: Sebastian Krass? Crass! I won't comment on the rest of the baggage, it would turn into baloney. Except perhaps for one: Martin Lejeune, the fake fox I fell for three years ago because he stood his ground on the hot Berlin police pavement and once even offered his services to the journalistic beacon Ken Jebsen (https://apolut.net/?s=martin+Lejeune). A year later, he apparently switched sides to the propaganda medium "t-online". Speaking of propaganda: in my personal opinion, this is what the majority of mainstream media products have degenerated into. The term "lying press", which arose years ago out of a certain impulse, still applies and yet falls short, because outright lies are only one part of the keyboard in the extensive PR "journalistic" toolbox.
PS. Another positive, beautiful thing: Meyen's associations immediately put a smile on my face. I love subtle passages like that! Nothing exposes more than apt satire. With this in mind, I can spontaneously think of a number of associations that could have been used to drive the drivers of the war and murder machine in Ukraine since 2014 - if you were in a position of power in a medium with a strong circulation ...