ProSieben Accepts Reprimand for Söring Innocence Claim
They did the right thing. When will other outlets follow suit?
First of all, please forgive the light posting lately. I have been hired to write a piece on another famous case of a (supposed) miscarriage of justice, and it’s had me very far down a rabbit hole. Needless to say, I will post a link to the piece once I’m done.
The other day I received an update from a reader which I found interesting. As most of you know, in early February 2022, the German private TV channel ProSieben ran a 15-minute feature on Jens Söring on its show “Galileo”. As I pointed out on my old blog here, the feature explicitly declared Söring to be innocent, and even featured a re-creation of the fictional encounter between Söring and Elizabeth Haysom after Haysom supposedly returned, with dried blood on her forearms, from a 400 mile round-trip to stab her own parents to death.
Many people complained that this story was misleading, and ProSieben eventually agreed. They scrubbed the feature from their website (of course I nabbed a copy first) and apologized (g) for the “clear journalistic mistake” they made in calling Söring innocent.
One viewer decided to file an official formal complaint with BLM — no, not that BLM — the Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien, or Bavarian Agency for New Media. A few days ago, the Agency completed its review of the ProSieben feature. They concluded that ProSieben had in fact violated the rules, and ordered ProSieben to pay the costs of the proceeding. They informed the viewer who filed the complaint about this. I should say that the viewer wasn’t me. There are now thousands, many people who have correctly concluded that Söring’s claims are frivolous and who complain when he is given a chance to broadcast them to a large audience.
Unfortunately the public doesn’t have access to the formal finding of a violation (Beanstandungsbescheid). This is a common problem in Germany, which is far less transparent about such matters than most other democracies (but that’s a topic for another post). The media-regulation agency noted that ProSieben had been cooperative and accepted responsibility for its error. This may be why the Agency didn’t make the finding public, but to determine that I’d have to dive into the rules on these things, and I have other fish to fry. If you want to look into the matter, feel free to enlighten us in the comments!
At any rate, there is now a formal finding that ProSieben violated some rule (presumably objectivity and balance) by officially endorsing Söring’s innocence claims. ProSieben did the right thing by admitting error and removing the video, so this post is meant to praise them for their honesty and also warn other media outlets that it is improper to endorse Söring’s innocence claims.
I’m working on another, more substantial post about a very curious document in the Söring case. I hope to have it out by the end of this week. Stay tuned!
Good Job, Andrew! Good luck with your other project while always remembering the lyrics of the them from the Jefferson. Angeblich, and supposedly, "Beans don't burn in the kitchen, and fish don't fry on the grill." In your case, I deem the lyrics accurate and state that you must be "frying the fish" by other means.
Regards,
Schmitt