CIVIL MEDIA speaks to Dr. Wolfgang Ressmann, Managing Director of OK-TV Ludwigshafen, Germany, and the Chairman of Federal Association of Citizen Media, as well as the Chairman of the Youth4Media-Network.
CIVIL MEDIA: I am speaking to Wolfgang Ressman from Germany, whom I will ask to say a few words about himself, about a project that he is running, about his professional engagement these days. But first of all Wolfgang, hi, good morning and how are you? How are you coping with the coronavirus, self-isolation and all the measures that are in place to protect ourselves?
RESSMANN: Yes, Germany is at home, so I am at home too. I’m fine. I use this time to work and to think about things. In other times I have no time, so I can say it’s great to talk to you now, to have such an opportunity, and I’m well and I hope that my friends all over the world are well too, and we will resist this virus crisis.
CIVIL MEDIA: Sure, so what are you doing, what is your occupation in this period, before the corona crisis, but also now? What is your project about? What are your projects about?
RESSMANN: My profession is managing director of a public access channel, the first one in Germany, OK TV at Ludwigshafen (www.ok-lu.de), and I am the chairman of our organization on national level, from public access radios, public access TV channels (www.bvbm.eu) and I am the chairman of youth4media ( youth4media.com ) of European and north Africa network for media literacy, talking about journalist issues, and talking about democracy and media development in the countries. This is what I do and these both positions we manage, and I manage together with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs project of the so-called countries of the eastern partnership, means Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Armenia, and to talk about peace, to talk about the task of journalism in times of fake news, open war in Ukraine, or frozen conflicts in Georgia and Armenia. So, that’s a lot of things to do from local to international issues.
CIVIL MEDIA: That’s exactly what I wanted to say. It’s quite a long list of positions and tasks, but they are I would say mostly connected to the democratic human rights corpus of themes and issues that are currently very important, especially speaking about the coronavirus pandemic. Wolfgang, I would like to refer to a letter I read from you yesterday that you shared with me. A letter in which you are warning about the risk for human rights and democracy in times of measures, the states of emergency and different types of operations that different governments across Europe and of course the world are taking. So, would you share with our public and the international public, of course, what are the concerns about the human rights nowadays, when we have states of emergency across the world, when governments take more power in their hands?
RESSMANN: Yeah, we have the problem with the coronavirus. But we had this problem before too. We have this problem of de-democratization in a lot of countries, right-wing populism is a problem. In the European Union we have this phenomenon in a lot of countries, especially in Poland with its PIS-government and in Hungary under Orban combined with the virus crisis, and in all countries of the Western world. Human rights, political rights, in this crisis are going down. At the moment we are not allowed to meet each other or to talk to persons directly in a short distance and so on. In a situation of a virus crisis I think is necessary to protect people, to protect life, but we must use this corona time also to think about how necessary these political and human rights are, to reflect it and not to give it up. And after the crisis some right-wing populist say ok we don’t need this democratic rights, you see it works without it, so that is the danger also in the heads of the people.
CIVIL MEDIA: That’s right. I just read I think in Deutsche Welle yesterday evening that Brussels has issued warning signs to the Hungarian Prime Minister that the power grab must not be used or abused under the excuse that they are fighting against the coronavirus. Would you comment on the Hungarian situation, how do you see the Hungarian situation right now, especially in light of the coronavirus, the struggle and challenges?
RESSMANN: From my position, what Orban’s government and Orban himself is not compatible to European values and to the European community. Orban´s plan to run the government by decrees without parliament for more than a year is absolutely unacceptable and has nothing to do with corona. This is a trial that to see how democracy can be abolished. The virus is an instrument, and I think this is a real hard development in Hungary, inbetween the European Union, and we have to say no to Orban and so I hope that Brussels says no to this development without heavy sanctions то Hungary, when Orban doesn’t take this attack on democracy back.
CIVIL MEDIA: In other words, if you agree with me, power grab or authoritarian governments do not necessarily mean that they can successfully fight the coronavirus pandemic or any other challenge in the society. To the contrary, I would say that the power grab is abused or used for the interest of a small group of people against the interest of the majority, not necessarily meaning that they can solve a crisis or any other problem. Well, maybe there is a need to make some distinction between what discipline and following advices and measures from relevant institutions and what a strong hand of authoritarians mean. Maybe we should start talking about these two different meanings of something that might look similar to one another.
RESSMANN: My opinion is, in times of crisis we have to differentiate the views in the heads of the people. One part wants to have a strong leader of society, to say that is the right way, this is forbidden, this is not allowed and you have to follow me on my way. This is one possible reaction of the people. The other is the democratic reaction, meaning that it is our responsibility to fight the virus, it is our responsibility how to work with our neighbours, how to take distance, this is our own decision, not made by the government. I think this is the democratic way, and so this virus crisis is also a chance for democracy. After the virus we have to discuss what democracy means in a situation of a crisis and how we can work with democratic rules in the future.
CIVIL MEDIA: Right. Well, when we speak about the coronavirus, the real fast spread of the coronavirus is one thing, and it’s really worrying, but on the other hand it looks like the fake news are spreading even faster. The contamination of fake news is even faster and bigger, and in some ways fake news can cause lives. In that respect, do you see that societies are ready, maybe the German society is ready to fight the fake news and to fight disinformation that is being spread from various reasons, from various motives. Do you have some considerations of this, and that maybe we should do something more as organizations, as media in struggling with fake news contamination, so to speak?
RESSMANN: Yes, the fake news are a problem since we have the raising up of social networks. Also in Germany the social networks, Facebook, Twitter and so on are platforms for fake news and their spread into society, this is one part, which is rather dangerous. On the other side in Germany we have the strong public radio and TV system paid by the people and so they are working against it. Also, our papers are working against it, to give special information about fake news from the social networks. And in the paper you can read, in the TV or radio program you can listen to the real information. So the journalist in Germany mostly are not feeding the flame and they try to inform people in a right way. That does not mean that sensational vanished completely at the moment. But I think that most of the people trust in the information they got by the media and in the stability of the democracy in Germany. Because of that people are so quiet and handling the situation at home.
CIVIL MEDIA: So, I believe that political culture and also the confidence of citizens in institutions at local or state level is very important in this respect. And, lucky for you, but not all European or all global societies, globally speaking, are so well-organized and with such a political culture of course. That is a big tip, but we need to work I guess actually your projects are going into that direction as well. Speaking about the fake news, I would like to recall a recent report by a European agency that is working on the fight against fake news and disinformation and other hybrid threats against democracy in which it was stated, clearly stated, with a lot of arguments and a lot of facts there, that Russian-based pro-government Russian media are actually in a quite an offensive, in terms of producing and disseminating fake news across Europe and across the world, that fake news are actually generated in order to give some advance to the Russian advancement, globally as a factor. And we have this impression also here in North Macedonia, but we can see that this is a global phenomenon in which Russian or pro-Putin media are actually in this operation for quite a long time and the coronavirus has been used and or abused as a space in which the fake news is diminishing democracies and diminishing the confidence of people in their health care systems and in their governments in general. Do you have some research or some considerations of this issue about the Russian foreign influence in this area?
RESSMANN: At the moment we have two developments: fake news production by the Russian media, for example “Russia Today” or by internet bots and so on. Yesterday I got the messages that in Ukraine there are more fighting at the moment in a time of an international agreement about an armistice. In seems that Russia and the separatists are exploiting the corona-situation for military operations. My friends from Armenia are also reporting about more shootings in the frontlines starting by the Azerbaijan army. So behind this virus wall, there are happening real things and we should have a look at this, what is happening behind the scenes. On the other side the EU-countries gave Russian the chance for propaganda sending relief supplies to Italy. This is another problem based on less solidarity in between Europe. Russian propaganda has not so much influence in Germany and it is not very successful. In Ukraine, in a lot of other states, the Russian influence is much higher. It is a dangerous weapon of Russia to get more influence to public opinion. So, we have to explain what Russia is doing, what the media-techniques including the messages. We have to discuss that issues with the journalists to cover it up, to say this is Russian propaganda, these are Russian fake news. I know it is a hard job.
CIVIL MEDIA: Well, with this final message it is a very hard job to struggle with fake news and disinformation and propaganda. I would like to thank you very much for your conversation and for your answers and for your input to our media production. I would like to wish you all the best, stay safe and send our best regards to Germany, which is a great friend of North Macedonia indeed. Thank you very much once again and all the best.
RESSMANN: Thank you. Bye.
Xhabir Deralla
Text processing: Natasha Cvetkovska
Video editing: Arian Mehmeti
