(By Ray Drake)
It wasn’t entirely unpredictable. When the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, we at Medienkritik realized it was only a matter of time before members of the German media would attempt to interpret the tragedy much as they interpreted the New York power outage several years ago: As a sign that America is in a state of total collapse and decay.
After the New York Power Outage, SPIEGEL Published this cover: World Power Without Power: Appearances and Reality in the USA (2003) – The Reaction to the Bridge Collapse has been Predictably Similar…
Well – we didn’t have to wait long for the disingenuous sensationalism to materialize. SPIEGEL ONLINE’s Marc Pitzke – the anti-American hack-of-hacks – quickly came out with a piece that headlines: “Collapse of the US Infrastructure.” The article features a seven-part photo series entitled: “US Infrastructure: Decayed, Ailing, Defective.”
Not only is this headline beyond constructive criticism – it is more of the same cynical bashing that we have grown accustomed to in German media. It is nothing more than the usual – cheap and arrogant – hatred that German media consumers keep slurping down and sucking up. Deep down people like Marc Pitzke want to prove to themselves – at a highly visceral, ideological level – that the American system of capitalism is inherently inferior to their own statist, socialist model. So any opportunity to claim that America is in a state of total decay and collapse is taken with great relish. (No – this has nothing to do with just reporting the plain facts.)
Little context and little desire to engage in constructive criticism have become the rule and not the exception in much of the German media coverage of the United States. Disgusting but true…
SPIEGEL magazine covers – 1997 to 2006. Representative of the magazine’s “objective” coverage of the United States over the past decade…
Endnote: Ironically, Minnesota – the state responsible for maintaining the bridge – is (along with Vermont and Massachusetts) perhaps the most ideologically in tune with Europe in terms of favoring left-leaning social, political and economic policies. Nonetheless – the German media will certainly find some way to drum up the usual charge: This is all Bush’s fault.
