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NB: This RealAudio stream contains FTRs 297 and 298 in sequence. Each is a 30-minute broadcast.
1. Beginning with a story about an award being given to Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff, the program highlights some interesting aspects of German corporate control over the American media. “In a quiet watershed of Jewish philanthropy, the honoree at a UJA-Federation benefit dinner next month will be Thomas Middelhof, the chief executive of Bertelsmann, a German media conglomerate that published Nazi propaganda for Hitler’s army. Those who choose Mr. Middelhoff, to be honored at the Steven J. Ross dinner on May 15 stress that Mr. Middelhoff was born after the war and has investigated Bertelsmann’s past and made what reparations he could . . . . The $1,000-a-plate Ross dinner, at which Matthew Bronfman’s brother Edgar Bronfman Jr. was a previous honoree, attracts some of the most prominent corporate and media figures in New York. This year, Tom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor, will be the master of ceremonies and Stephen M. Case, the chairman of AOL Time Warner, will present the award . . . . Elie Wiesel, a writer and Holocaust survivor, will deliver the key-note speech. Last fall, random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann, pledged $1 million to the Holocaust Survivors’ Memoir Project, for which Mr. Wiesel is the honorary chairman. Mr. Wiesel is the honorary chairman. Mr. Wiesel said he agreed to speak because he trusted Mr. Middelhoff. ‘While it was in the end Random House that gave the money for the survivors’ memoirs, the agreement was with Bertelsmann, and it was Middelhoff who made the commitment,’ Mr. Wiesel said . . . . Not long after Mr. Middelhoff became chief executive in 1998, critical stories about Bertelsmann’s war history appeared in The Nation magazine and a Swiss magazine. Mr. Middelhoff then created an independent commission, headed by the historian Saul Friedlander, to look into the company’s past. In January 2000, the commission found that Bertelsmann had not opposed Hitler, as the company had previously claimed. Rather, it said, the company had ties to the Nazis, and was the largest supplier of reading material, including Nazi propaganda, to the German military. Three months later, Bertelsmann announced that it would contribute to the German fund to compensate workers used as slave labor in the Nazi era.” (“Past Collides With Closure as Jews Honor a German” by Tamar Lewin; New York Times; 4/30/2001; p. A18.)
2. The giving of this award to Middelhoff is ironic and grotesque in a number of different respects. (Much of the series on German corporate control over American media is devoted to Bertelsmann and there is an abundant amount of information on the firm in the other programs in this series.) The available evidence strongly suggests that Bertelsmann is part of the Bormann organization. (The economic and political component of a Third Reich gone underground, the Bormann organization controls corporate Germany and much of the rest of the world. It was created and run by Martin Bormann, the organizational genius who was the “the power behind the throne” in Nazi Germany. The Bormann group is a primary element of the analysis presented in the For the Record programs.)
3. Reviewing some of the salient aspects of the Bertelsmann firm, we highlight the grotesque quality to the granting of the award to Middelhoff. (“Bertelsmann’s Nazi Past” by Hersch Fischler and John Friedman; The Nation; 12/28/98; p. 1.)
4. “Issuing more than 20 million volumes, Bertelsmann was the largest supplier to the army and supplied the SS. When Bertelsmann applied after the war for a second publishing license, it was turned down by occupation authorities. [Bertelsmann patriarch Heinrich] Mohn had ‘forgotten’ to mention that he had been a ‘passive’ member of the SS, as well as a supporter of the Hitler Youth and a member of the prestigious National Socialist Flying Corps, according to de-Nazification files in the central state archive in Dusseldorf.” (“Bertelsmann’s Nazi Past” by Hersch Fischler and John Friedman; The Nation; 12/28/98; pp. 1–2.)
5. As indicated in the New York Times article cited above, when the information about the firm’s Nazi past was printed in The Nation, Middelhoff formed an “independent” commission to investigate it. One of the appointees to that commission was Dirk Bavendamm (Bertelsmann’s official historian), whose work and views call into question the degree of separation that the company has effected from its Third Reich heritage.
6. “His book Roosevelt’s Way to War (Roosevelt’s Weg zum Krieg) was published in 1983. Rewriting history, he stated that Roosevelt, not Hitler had caused World War II. He also wrote that American Jews controlled most of the media,’ and he claimed they gave a false picture of Hitler. Did the book impress [Heinrich’s son Reinhard] Mohn, then the majority shareholder of Bertelsmann? The firm hired Bavendamm as its house historian, and in 1984 he completed a historical study, 150 Years of Bertelsmann: The Founders and Their Time—with a foreword by Mohn. A year later, Bavendamm edited the firm’s official history, which set forth the untrue story that the firm had resisted the Nazis and had been closed down by them. Mohn also asked Bavendamm to write the authorized history of the Mohn family, published in 1986 under the title Bertelsmann, Mohn, Scippel: Three Families—One Company. In a second book, Roosevelt’s War (published in 1993, reissued in 1998), Bavendamm accuses the U.S. President of enacting a plan to start World War II. In the same book he suggests that Hitler’s threats in early 1939 against European Jewry were a reaction to Roosevelt’s strategy against Germany. After the revelations about Bertelsmann’s Nazi past appeared, the company announced that it had asked ‘the historian and publicist Dr. Dirk Bavendamm to look at the new information and begin to reinvestigate the role the publishing house played in those days’ and defended his work.” (“Bertelsmann’s Revisionist” by Hersch Fischler and John Friedman; The Nation; 11/8/99; p. 1.)
7. In that context, it is interesting to speculate about Bertelsmann’s motives in backing the survivors’ memoir and contributing to the fund to compensate victims of the Third Reich. (Public relations considerations are probably paramount in this regard.) It is also interesting to note that the Bormann organization, to which Bertelsmann appears to belong, wields considerable in Israel and within that country’s support network abroad. “Since the founding of Israel, the Federal Republic of Germany had paid out 85.3 billion marks, by the end of 1977, to survivors of the Holocaust. East Germany ignores any such liability. From South America, where payment must be made with subtlety, the Bormann organization has made a substantial contribution. It has drawn many of the brightest Jewish businessmen into a participatory role in the development of many of its corporations, and many of these Jews share their prosperity most generously with Israel. If their proposals are sound, they are even provided with a specially dispensed venture capital fund. I spoke with one Jewish businessman in Hartford, Connecticut. He had arrived there quite unknown several years before our conversation, but with Bormann money as his leverage. Today he is more than a millionaire, a quiet leader in the community with a certain share of his profits earmarked, as always, for his venture capital benefactors. This has taken place in many other instances across America and demonstrates how Bormann’s people operate in the contemporary commercial world, in contrast to the fanciful nonsense with which Nazis are described in so much ‘literature.’ So much emphasis is placed on select Jewish participation in Bormann companies that when Adolf Eichmann was seized and taken to Tel Aviv to stand trial, it produced a shock wave in the Jewish and German communities of Buenos Aires. Jewish leaders informed the Israeli authorities in no uncertain terms that this must never happen again because a repetition would permanently rupture relations with the Germans of Latin America, as well as with the Bormann organization, and cut off the flow of Jewish money to Israel. It never happened again, and the pursuit of Bormann quieted down at the request of these Jewish leaders. He is residing in an Argentine safe haven, protected by the most efficient German infrastructure in history, as well as by all those whose prosperity depends on his well-being. Personal invitation is the only way to reach him.” (Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 226–227.)
8. It is ironic to note that Holocaust survivor Wiesel lauds Random House for its support for the survivors’ memoir. Random House’s behavior vis-à-vis a book authored by a key witness in Holocaust revisionist David Irving’s unsuccessful libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher suggests that Wiesel’s accolades are, at the very least, premature. “[Queens Counsel and Lipstadt attorney Anthony] Julius won because the professor of modern history at Cambridge had demolished Irving’s scholarship. Richard J. Evans went through Irving’s sources and produced an exhaustive 740-page analysis which detailed how Irving had twisted evidence in the Nazi interest. Irving had censored himself as well as the past by cutting references to death camps from his early work when it was reprinted. Evans has written a book on the affair—Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial. You are free to buy it in America and read the professor’s account of the case and reflections on historical interpretation. I’ve no doubt it is a serious study. Evans is the author of In Defense of History, a patient critique of the wild subjectivity of postmodernist theory. You were meant to be free to read Lying about Hitler in Britain. But last week, Evans’ publishers, Heinemann, a branch of the Random House conglomerate, ordered that the book should be pulped. [Justice] Gray’s verdict, which came after years of collecting evidence and months of cross-examination in an enormously expensive trial, might as well never have happened. Heinemann said they did not dare publish because Irving was appealing against Gray’s ruling. In fact, Irving has been refused permission to appeal, and it is that decision he is contesting. In the very unlikely event of Irving winning and the Court of Appeal agreeing to consider Gray’s condemnation, the crushing evidence against him should deny him victory. Granta Books certainly think so and snapped up Lying about Hitler. Granta didn’t ‘see any terrible legal nightmares’ and was ‘very enthusiastic and keen to publish.’ We shall still be able to make up our own minds about Evans’ writing. If the story stopped there, the moral of the censorship of Evans would merely be that robust authors should think hard before signing a contract with Random House.” (“Without Prejudice: A Ploy Named Sue” by Nick Cohen; The Observer [London]; 3/18/2001.)
9. The views and work of Bertelsmann historian Bavendamm and the actions of Random House subsidiary Heinemann in pulping the Evans book should be compared with the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk.
10. Mr. Emory has dealt with this book extensively. Mr. Emory believes that, like The Turner Diaries (also published by National Vanguard Books), the book is actually a blueprint for what is going to take place. It is a novel about a Nazi takeover of the United States in the middle of the 21st century. The book describes the Third Reich going underground, buying into the American media, and taking over the country. “It assumes that Hitler’s warrior elite—the SS—didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War. Instead their survivors went underground and adopted some of their tactics of their enemies: they began building their economic muscle and buying into the opinion-forming media. A century after the war they are ready to challenge the democrats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Americans, who have begun to have their fill of government-enforced multi-culturalism and ‘equality.’ ” (From the back cover of Serpent’s Walk by “Randolph D. Calverhall;” Copyright 1991 [SC]; National Vanguard Books; 0–937944-05‑X.)
11. This process is described in more detail in a passage of text, consisting of a discussion between Wrench (a member of this Underground Reich) and a mercenary named Lessing. “The SS . . . what was left of it . . .had business objectives before and during World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but from other places: Bogota, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Colombo, Damascus, Dacca . . . you name it. They realized that the world is heading towards a ‘corporacracy;’ five or ten international super-companies that will run everything worth running by the year 2100. Those super-corporations exist now, and they’re already dividing up the production and marketing of food, transport, steel and heavy industry, oil, the media, and other commodities. They’re already dividing up the production and marketing of food, transport, steel and heavy industry, oil, the media, and other commodities. They’re mostly conglomerates, with fingers in more than one pie . . . .We, the SS, have the say in four or five. We’ve been competing for the past sixty years or so, and we’re slowly gaining . . . . About ten years ago, we swung a merge, a takeover, and got voting control of a supercorp that runs a small but significant chunk of the American media. Not openly, not with bands and trumpets or swastikas flying, but quietly: one huge corporation cuddling up to another one and gently munching it up, like a great, gubbing amoeba. Since then we’ve been replacing executives, pushing somebody out here, bringing somebody else in there. We’ve swing program content around, too. Not much, but a little, so it won’t show. We’ve cut down on ‘nasty-Nazi’ movies . . . good guys in white hats and bad guys in black SS hats . . . lovable Jews versus fiendish Germans . . . and we have media psychologists, ad agencies, and behavior modification specialists working on image changes . . . . But all we ever hear about are the poor, innocent Jews and the awful ‘Holocaust,’ when, in fact, there never was an ‘extermination policy,’ a ‘Final Solution,’ or anything like it!” (Ibid.; pp. 42–43.)
12. The vision of the future presented in this book should appear sobering under the circumstances. In light of this vision, the actions of Random House (and Bertelsmann) subsidiary Heinemann in destroying the Evans book and the views and actions of official Bertelsmann historian Dirk Bavendamm, the award given to Middelhoff would appear to be less than appropriate.
Banking with Bin Laden
[...] FTR #298: German corporate control over american media [...]
German publishing giant Axel Springer just gobbled up Business Insider and, according to the article below, despite the rather high price paid, Axel Springer’s appetite for more US media firms has yet to be sated:
“As for where the company is headed next, Keese said Axel has kicked the tires on a wide variety of media companies in the English-speaking world. They’re not necessarily thirsting for another, but they’re far from out of the game.”
So Axel Springer might be done with its current round of corporate feasting. Or not. It hasn’t decided yet. But if it does decide to make more inroads into foreign media markets, Axel Springer may find it has competition from the other German media giant with an appetite for foreign acquisitions, Bertelsmann. Although, since Bertelsmann appears to be trying to diversify away from publishing with its numerous purchases over the past year, competition with Axel Springer for foreign media firms may not be a problem:
“I would say we’re already a very broad company...But we want to become even broader.”
Broadening Bertelsmann through further acquisitions also probably won’t be a problem.
Read this article from the November 4, 2016 Dailey Mail (UK) “Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are investigated by German prosecutors for ‘failing to remove racist posts that violate anti-hate speech laws’ from Facebook”
- The article is loaded with psychological inuendo The both the founder Marc Zuckerberg and his Chief Operating Officer are Jews an Americans who are the target in this article/investigation. This can subconciously cause a negative bias a liberal or anti ‑Nazi German Citizen.
The following excerpt is sadly comical when one considers that Bertelsmann is owned by the Underground Reich.
“They include what some might consider merely angry political rants but also clear examples of racist hate speech and calls to violence laced with references to Nazi-era genocide. Following a public outcry and pressure from German politicians, Facebook this year hired Arvato, a business services unit of Bertelsmann, to monitor and delete racist posts.”
One has to ask the question if the Nazi linked Facebook investor Peter Thiele had any influence on this selection.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3906588/German-prosecutors-investigate-Facebook-hate-postings.html
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are investigated by German prosecutors for ‘failing to remove racist posts that violate anti-hate speech laws’ from Facebook
German prosecutors are investigating Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg over allegations that the site failed to remove racist posts.
Attorney Chan-jo Jun has filed a complaint to courts in Munich alleging the company broke national laws against hate speech and sedition.
Facebook’s rules forbid bullying, harassment and threatening language, but critics say it does not do enough to enforce them.
The site has also been accused of failing to staunch a tide of racist and threatening posts on the social network during an influx of migrants into Europe.
Prosecutors in Hamburg earlier this year rejected a similar complaint by Jun on the grounds that the regional court lacked jurisdiction because Facebook’s European operations are based in Ireland.
A spokesman for Jun’s legal team said: ‘There is a different view in Bavaria.
‘Upon Jun’s request, Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback said that Hamburg’s view was wrong and German law does indeed apply to some of the offences,’ it said.
Jun’s complaint named Facebook founder and chief executive Zuckerberg and nine other managers at the company, including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Facebook said it had not violated German law and was working on fighting hate speech online.
A spokesman said: ‘We are not commenting on the status of a possible investigation but we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees.’
Jun has compiled a list of 438 postings that were flagged as inappropriate but not deleted over the past year.
They include what some might consider merely angry political rants but also clear examples of racist hate speech and calls to violence laced with references to Nazi-era genocide.
Following a public outcry and pressure from German politicians, Facebook this year hired Arvato, a business services unit of Bertelsmann, to monitor and delete racist posts.
A rash of online abuse and violent attacks against newcomers to Germany accompanied the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants last year, which led to a rise in the popularity of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and has put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.
There’s a pretty notable story in the publishing business emerging: German publishing giant Axel Springer is effectively taking itself private. The partner in this process of taking Axel Spring private is Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), which is going to buy out all of the minority shareholders at a 40% premium. This will leave just KKR and the main shareholders led by Axel Springer’s 76-year-old widow Friede Springer. Friede and CEO Mathias Doepfner control 45.4% between the two of them. Axel Springer’s grandchildren own another 9.8%, and the remaining 44.8% is free floating. It’s that 44.8% that KKR is going to buy out, but the stakes owned by the grandchildren could also be sold to KKR, potentially giving it a majority stake. As part of the deal, Friede would be guaranteed a say in company’s strategy even if KKR secures a majority stake.
As the following article notes, KKR also partnered with Bertelsmann in 2009 when they created a joint music venture. Bertelsmann bought out KKR’s share in 2013 (for a nice profit for KKR), so KKR has a recent history of partnering with German media giants. KKR has pledged to stay in this business with Axel Springer for at least 5 years. So it sounds like we might be seeing a similar strategy here, where KKR acts as the financial muscle for a new corporate strategy and if it works KKR will get to cash out with a hefty profit. It also suggests that Axel Springer will almost be entirely owned by its main shareholders if KKR ends up selling its shares back to them in five years.
As the article also notes, Axel Springer’s main shareholders are also planning on an acquisition spree. This is at the same time the company issued a profit warning. So at the same time Axel Springer is warning about its profits, it’s also partnering with KKR (which has very deep pockets) to buy up more media properties. Keep in mind this in taking place in the context of a industry meltdown across the digital publishing sector so there’s probably quite a few good deals available for an entity with deep pockets. And that appears to be the broader story here: one of the biggest publishers in the world appears to be getting ready to take part of the inevitable consolidation of the deeply troubled digital publishing industry and KKR is going to be financing it:
“The offer, made in concert with main shareholders led by founder Axel Springer’s 76-year-old widow Friede, would guarantee her a say over strategy even if KKR secures a majority stake.”
As we can see, KKR is being brought in a major partner, but this is being done in a way that appears to guarantee that ultimate control over Axel Springer remains in the hands of its primary shareholders who happen to be the Springer family and CEO Mathias Doepfner:
And the plans for this new partnership appear to revolve around building up Axel Springer’s digital classifieds, which earns the bulk of the company’s profits, and acquiring new companies, which is where KKR’s deep pockets could be very useful:
It’s all pretty big news for the digital publishing industry. It’s also worth noting one of the ironies here: Recall how Axel Springer has been the primary corporate force pushing the EU to implement policies designed to either reign in the power of the Silicon Valley giants like Google or Facebook at least extract some sort of payment from them (via a ‘link tax’ or something similar) that flows back to the digital publishing industry. Well, now that Axel Springer is shopping around for new digital acquisitions it’s hard to ignore the grim reality that the fire sale prices Axel Springer is probably going to be for these digital publishing companies is due largely to the devastating impact Google and Facebook have had on journalism’s business model:
“The last two decades have been perhaps the worst in American history for journalism. After years of decline, newsroom employment fell a further 23 percent from 2008–2017 — a trend which shows no sign of stopping.”
The worst two decades in US history for journalism. That’s the industry trend backdrop for Axel Springer’s acquisition plans. And the primary culprit for this sorry state of affairs is unambiguously the near-monopoly status over the digital advertising business achieved by Google and Facebook. Google alone almost made as much from news ads as the rest of the entire Americans news industry combined:
Even worse, it’s entirely possible that breaking up Google in order to separate the different components like DoubleClick and Adexchange that create this market stranglehold still might not really address the fundamental problem of having a monopoly running the digital advertising market. Why? Because the nature of the online ad business is such that there’s a very high fixed costs to get it set up but minimal costs for expanding and that’s a recipe for the creation of a natural monopoly. Some services, like delivering electricity of water to homes, are natural monopolies simply due to the physical requirements of provided those services. But in this case we have a natural monopoly due to market dynamics that make it effectively impossible for competitors to dethrone the existing industry leader. DoubleClick is still going to be dominating the online ad business and effectively strangling the journalism industry whether it’s a part of Google or not:
So that’s all going to be a major part of the industry context in Axel Springer’s upcoming acquisition spree: Google and Facebook have already starved the industry of revenues and that’s going to be mean a lot of bargains. Then there’s the fact that Facebook systematically lied to publishers during the 2016 campaign season about the number of viewers that were watching videos on Facebook, inflating the number of viewers by up to 900 percent according to a lawsuit. As a consequence of these inflated video viewership numbers, digital publications made the switch to producing video, which sucked resources away from traditional journalism, resulting in the layoffs of journalists. This lie was told by Facebook from July 2015 to June 2016, a pretty crucial period of time for journalism given the US election. And according to the lawsuit, internal documents show this was a lie Facebook was knowingly telling. So Facebook effectively lied the digital media industry into a business dead end a few years ago which is also part of the industry context of Axel Springer’s upcoming acquisition spree:
“Facebook egregiously overstated the success of videos posted to its social network for years, exaggerating the time spent watching them by as much as 900 percent, a new legal filing claims. Citing 80,000 pages of internal Facebook documents, aggrieved advertisers further allege that the company knew about the problem for at least a year and did nothing.”
Yep, Facebook was telling digital publishers that videos were getting 900 percent more viewers than they actually were and the company knowingly told this lie for at least a year. And not just any year. This was from July 2015 to June 2016, according ot the lawsuit, when digital publishers were going to be making huge investments in the upcoming election coverage. But Facebook began reporting enormous video-viewership numbers in 2014, so it sounds like the lie started at least by that point. So digital publishers did what Facebook advised and switched to creating videos. But the promised revenues never materialized:
This was an industry-wide phenomena which means it’s an industry-wide debacle based on Facebook’s lies. And as the article reminds us, at the same time Facebook lied the industry into this massive strategic mistake, Facebook was eating up more and more online advertising content much like Google:
As we can see, between Facebook and Google, the digital publishing industry has become a lot less stable an industry. And this trend appears to be going strong. The industry is only getting more distressed. It makes for a interest playing field for a company with Axel Springer’s size. Because it’s clear that the digital publishing industry is going to be facing a big shakeout and it’s going to be the giants like Axel Springer who obviously surivive that shakeout, but unless something is done to address the monopolistic power of Google and Facebook on the online ad business it’s still unclear what it’s going to take to end the dark times for publishing beyond simply having a large percent of the competition going out of business and leaving a few survivors. So Google and Facebook are basically driving the digital publishing industry into a period of distress and consolidation and right into the arms of giants like Axel Springer with the cash needed to pick up dying publications for cheap.
So while governments should definitely be looking into antitrust moves against Facebook and Google and investigate whether or not the online ad industry is effectively a natural monopoly that requires special regulations, keep in mind that Axel Springer is already the largest publisher in Europe and planning on buying up the competition Facebook and Google already crushed. It’s a reminder that the surviving media giants might need some antitrust investigations of their own after the upcoming period of industry consolidation that Google and Facebook made inevitable. Google and Facebook shouldn’t have a monopoly on generating antitrust concerns.
Here’s a set of articles on a potentially significant shakeup in the US political media marketplace. A shakeup and a capture of that market by none other than Friede Springer and Mathias Doepfner, the two main shareholders of Axel Springer. Recall how Doepfner and Springer took Alex Springer private in 2019 after a private equity buyout by KKR, who together hold approximately 45.4% of Alex Springer’s capital. And part of the logic behind taking the publishing giant private at that point at the time was to ease the future acquisition of new companies. This was four years after the company acquired Business Insider. Doepfner and Springer had plans. Big plans. And those big plans fell into place in a big way last month with the acquisition of Politico for more than $1 billion.
And as we’re going to see, part of what makes this deal so significant is that this clearly isn’t the last major media acquisition Axel Springer is planning on making in the near future. Axios is also on Doepgner and Springer’s wish list. So by the time Axel Spring is done with this media buyout spree, it could end up owning a significant chunk of the US political opinion-forming media:
“Springer has been pursuing deals in the United States as a way to expand its portfolio. The publisher has become particularly attracted to subscription-based news businesses. After Springer acquired Business Insider for around $500 million in 2015, it remade the company to become a subscription-based news outlet and put its scoops behind a paywall. (For that deal, Springer paid almost nine times Business Insider’s revenue.) Last year, the company acquired a controlling stake in Morning Brew, a newsletter publisher.”
Spinger is particularly attracted to subscription-based news outlets. That sure sounds like a business model predicated on putting more and more content behind a paywall. It’s an example of the kind of changes we can probably expect to see in the US political media as a consequence of Springer’s growing ownership of the US media landscape. On top of all the quiet editorial changes that might be taking place behind the scenes. It’s those editorial changes that are part of what makes the potential buyout of Axios so disturbing. Springer and Doepfner would end up owning two of the major DC-politics focused US outlets. That’s part of why it’s hard to take very seriously the vague assurances from Springer that the buyout of Politico put an end to their Axios ambitions:
Next, here’s a Bloomberg piece from 2019 about KKR taking Axel Springer private that gives us an insight into part of the motive for the move at the time: being shielded from the additional scrutiny that comes with being a publicly traded firm will make it easier to make future acquisitions:
“Friede Springer — the widow of the company’s founder with the largest stake — and Chief Executive Officer Mathias Doepfner support the potential investment and plan to keep their holdings.”
Mathias Doepfner and Friede Springer had big plans in 2019. That’s what the KKR buyout signified: much bigger plans for the future. And those plans included maintaining their substantial holdings while taking the company private. In other words, Deopgner and Springer desired relatively greater unchecked power to make decisions, including decisions like buying more companies:
So with the 2021 buyout of Politico we’re seeing the realization of those mysterious plans the company strongly hinted at in 2019. Plans that seem to include the eventual buyout of Axios, despite what we’re hearing to the contrary. Friede Springer and Mathias Döpfner are going to have one of the most powerful voices in the US political media landscape. At least indirectly. We’re being assured there will be no editorial meddling by the new owners. Let’s hope so. Because as the following 2015 AlterNet article by Max Blumenthal reminds us, the historical editorial slant of Axel Springer-owned publications has an alarming number of parallels to that of Rubert Murdoch’s own media empire:
“Springer’s editorial line offers a stark contrast to the progressive tone of the Huffington Post. Founded in 1946 by the journalist Axel Springer, the company now holds about $3 billion in assets and oversees a collection of low-brow publications mostly associated with what liberal-minded Germans derisively refer to as “the boulevard press.” It was during the late 1960’s when Springer took a turn to the populist right, with Axel Springer siccing his most popular tabloid, Bild, against the radical left-wing student movement in West Germany. The paper homed in on Rudi Dutschke, one of the movement’s most visible leaders, accusing him of conspiring to bring down West Germany through violent revolution while calling on patriotic Germans to “eliminate the trouble makers.””
Axel Springer never ended up purchasing Huffington Post, going with a Business Insider purchase instead that year. But we don’t have to wildly guess how the purchase of the left-leaning Huffington Post would have gone. Axel Springer has decades of history and an established editorial bent that its publications have held over those decades. An established right-wing editorial bent that put its publications in direct competition with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire:
How will this long-established right-wing editorial bent bleed into Politico’s coverage of US politics? Again, we’re told it’s going to be a hands-off ownership. But those decades of right-wing Axel Springer content suggests otherwise. And that’s why we should probably expect a steady trickle of articles in the rest of the US political press talking about this or that surprising right-wing stance taken by Politico. At least, we can probably expect a trickle of those kinds of articles in the rest of the US political press that isn’t already owned by Axel Springer.
How is Politico going to cover the next US insurrection? That’s one of the many disturbing questions raised in a Washington Post report last month about the still mysterious politics animating Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of German publishing giant Axel Springer, Politico’s new owner. Now, one one level, Döpfner’s politics aren’t super mysterious. Axel Springer’s leading German publication, Bild, is notorious for pushing the kind of right-wing tabloid content expected on Fox News. Döpfner reportedly bristles when he is called Germany’s Rupert Murdoch, and yet is sure sounds like that’s exactly what he is.
And then there’s the story of an disturbing email sent by Döpfner to his closest executives two weeks before the 2020 election. A email simply asked, “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”” Döpfner simply denied such an email was ever sent when initially asked about it. After being shown the email, Döpfner then attempted to brush is off as a sarcastic joke and insists that he’s never been a supporter of Trump. When asked about his politics, Döpfner describes his views as eclectic, calling himself a “non-Jewish Zionist” with “small‑L liberal” tendencies, deeply concerned about racism and homophobia. According to friends, he also privately worries about cancel culture and identity politics. So one of the most powerful people in the Western media landscape apparently has an closet affinity for Trumpian politics that he tries to hide by describing his politics as ‘eclectic’.
It also turns out that one of his sons works as chief of staff to Peter Thiel. It’s an interesting detail given the mysterious nature of Döpfner rise in the German publishing world, where he was effectively hand-picked for leadership roles by Axel Springer’s widow despite now background in publishing. As we’ve seen, Frankfurt-born Peter Thiel has his own interesting family background with a father who appears to have played in important role in South Africa’s secret nuclear weapons program. And now we find one of Döpfner’s sons working as Thiel’s chief of staff. Did Thiel and Döpfner have the same secret ‘sponsors’ facilitating their rises in the business world?
These are the kinds of questions raised by the following report. Questions we have yet to answer. At least answer directly. But that’s part of what makes this a troubling story: you can usually determine the politics of the owners of major media publications whether they want to reveal those politics or not just by observing the quality of the coverage. And in particular what that coverage doesn’t cover. So while Mathias Döpfner may not want to share this personal info, we’re all going to find out one way or another, likely in the form of more and more right-wing spin:
“He’s 6‑foot‑7, often seen in black V‑necks and skinny suits that strike a continental pose among the self-styled thought leaders in the power corridors of Davos, Bilderberg and Sun Valley. From an unlikely entry into journalism as a PhD-holding music critic, the charismatic editor ascended rapidly, gaining the trust of Springer’s widow to the extent she essentially made him the heir to the company. While other new billionaires invest in yachts, Döpfner built an art museum to house his collection of female nudes by female artists, said to be the world’s largest.”
He seemed to come out of nowhere in the German publishing world back in the 90s, and now he’s at work transforming the US media landscape. One of the most influential people on the planet has big plans for more influence. Hence all the interest in his personal politics. And hence all the concern over the mysterious text Mathias Döpfner sent to his closest executives two weeks before the 2020 election, praying for Donald Trump’s reelection. Döpfner first denied the texts exist entirely, and then when shown the texts tried to brush them off as a sarcastic joke. He continued to deny having ever supported Trump and instead describes his political views as ‘eclectic’. When someone describes their politics as ‘eclectic’ that’s another way of saying they’d rather not describe them. At least not publicly. Oh, and it turns out his son works as Peter Thiel’s chief of staff. It’s like one red flag after another:
But we don’t need to read the tea leaves to try to divine Döpfner’s politics. The right-wing tabloid nature of his flagship publication, Bild, is all the evidence we need. This is why he’s seen as Germany’s Rupert Murdoch. Actions speak louder than words, especially for media CEOs:
Finally, it’s also worth noting with whom Döpfner managed to score an hour long meeting after scoring his Politico acquisition: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This was in April of this year, over a month into the conflict in Ukraine. It’s the kind of meeting that raises the question: who was the bigger hawk regarding Ukraine in that meeting?
Keep in mind that we have no reason to assume that Axel Springer’s US media buying spree has come to an end. Recall how Axel Springer signaled that its purchase of Politico didn’t mean an end to its pursuit of Axios. The influence of Döpfner in the US is only set to grow in coming decades. And not just the US. Axel Springer is a global powerhouse and that makes Döpfner one of the most influential people on the planet. Rupert Murdoch-league influence. With Rupert Murdoch-league politics, it seems.
There’s been a remarkable and rather disturbing story emerging over the last few story. A meta ‘story about a story’ kind of story involving billionaires trying to intimidate editors. But also a story that involves the remarkable role Axel Springer now plays in the US news media landscape.
First, recall the ongoing story about the plagiarism charges that have become part of the high profile crusade billionaire Bill Ackman has been waging against various Ivy League universities in response to campus protests over the war in Gaza. Plagiarism charges enthusiastically pushed against Harvard President Claudine Gay in coordination with key right-wing Chris Rufo, the architect of much of the contemporary right-wing fixation on ‘wokeness’ in education and the perils of institutional ‘DEI’ (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. Ackman has effectively be operating as a powerful new ally in Rufo’s ongoing anti-DEI campaign.
But then Ackamn experienced some blowback. Or rather, his wife, Neri Oxman, experienced the blowback after Business Insider published a piece on the plagiarism they were able to find in Oxman’s own PhD thesis. In response, Ackman has gone on the war path, not only threatening to sue Business Insider but publicly insisting that his wife was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack.
So how has Business Insider’s ownership responded to the charge that Business Insider’s leadership is motivated by anti-Semitism? Well, Business Insider’s owner — German publishing giant Axel Springer, which acquired Business Insider in 2015 — appears to be taking the charges seriously. And yet, at the same time, Axel Springer is standing by the facts in the report. So Axel Springer appears to be seriously investigating whether or not anti-Semitism motivated a factual report on Neri Oxman. It’s the kind of response that has generated palpable dismay among current and former Business Insider reporters. Although presumably not just Business Insider’s reporters. Don’t forget that Axel Springer bought Politico in 2021 for more than $1 billion.
And yet, as we’ve seen, this wasn’t an entirely unexpected outcome thanks to the curious politics of Axel Springer’s chief Mathias Doepfner (Dopfner/Döpfner). Recall the remarkable report we got back in September of 2022 about the disturbing email sent by Doepner to his closest executives two weeks before the 2020 election. The email asked, “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Doepfner denied the email was ever sent when initially asked about it. After being shown the email, Doepfner then attempted to brush is off as a sarcastic joke and insists that he’s never been a supporter of Trump. When asked about his politics, Doepfner describes his views as eclectic, calling himself a “non-Jewish Zionist” with “small‑L liberal” tendencies, deeply concerned about racism and homophobia. According to friends, he also privately worries about cancel culture and identity politics. As we also learned, Axel Springer staff in Germany are required to sign a pledge committing to principles that include a disavowal of racism, sexism and political or religious extremism; but also support for a united Europe, Israeli statehood and a free-market economy. So Doepfner appears to be very conservative — he was rooting for Trump in 2020, after all — but also an arch-supporter of Israel.
That’s all part of the context of the following report about the direct role Doepfner has been playing behind the scenes at Business Insider in response to the angry threats issued by billionaire Bill Ackman in the wake of Business Insider’s reports highlighting the apparent plagiarism found in the PhD thesis of his academic celebrity wife Neri Oxman. But there’s another ‘right-wing billionaires working together’ angle to this story. It appears that Ackman’s ire towards Business Insider has earn him an ally: Elon Musk, who has his own beef with Business Insider following the outlet’s 2022 reporting on allegations made about Musk exposing himself to a SpaceX flight attendant, is now openly encouraging Ackman to sue the outlet. Ackman, in turn, has written posts on X.com praising Musk for his ‘free-speech absolutism’. And that brings us to another ironic part of this story: days ago, a number of left-leaning journalists discovered their X.com accounts had been suspended for no apparent reason. What did they all have in common? They had recently criticized Musk or Ackman.
The journalist’s X.com accounts were all restored eventually, with an excuse being given about the accounts accidentally being caught up in anti-spam sweeps. But it’s hard to ignore the message. The message that you don’t mess with billionaires or they will come after you...possibly with Mathias Doepfner’s backing. It’s a chilling message. Which is presumably the point:
“But when Business Insider raised plagiarism concerns about his wife’s work, Ackman excoriated the publication, accusing it of unethical journalism, promising to review its writers’ work and predicting that it would “go bankrupt and be liquidated.” In one social media post, he implied that Business Insider’s investigations editor (whom he called “a known anti-Zionist”) may have been “willing to lead this attack” because Oxman is Israeli.”
Was Neri Oxman the victim of an anti-Semitic attack by “a known anti-Zionist”? That’s the assertion of her billionaire husband Bill Ackman following Business Insider’s report on the apparent plagiarism found in Oxman’s PhD dissertation. So was it an anti-Semitic attack? Or merely the logical outcome of Ackman’s successful attack on now-former Harvard President Claudine Gay that included plagiarism allegations? It’s a question Business Insider’s owner, Axel Springer, has apparently been wrestling with based on the company’s statement about how it would “review the processes” that led up to the article’s publication...all while acknowledging that the stories were not factually wrong. Was this a factually accurate anti-Semitic attack on Neri Oxman? Axel Springer is apparently taking that accusation seriously:
And note how Oxman isn’t just the academic wife of a high profile billionaire who has been aggressively inserted himself into the news cycle in recent months. Oxman is herself a “well-known academic” and start-up founder. In other words, if Business Insider was to hold back on reporting embarrassing information about Oxman, it wouldn’t be because such reports about Oxman weren’t newsworthy but rather out of deference to her elite status, which is the kind of stance that has journalists like Julia Black “extremely disturbed”:
And then we get to what is presumably the real driving force behind this story: Axel Springer CEO Mathias Doepfner has made support for Israel a major part of his public persona. Don’t forget that Doepfner calls himself as a “non-Jewish Zionist” with “small‑L liberal” tendencies and Axel Springer staff in Germany are required to sign a pledge committing to principles that include a disavowal of racism, sexism and political or religious extremism; but also support for a united Europe, Israeli statehood and a free-market economy. We don’t know that it was exclusively Doepfner who is demanding this “review of the processes”, but we can be confident he is the driving force behind those demands:
And then we get to this interesting tangential story involving billionaires trying to influence the media’s coverage of them: Business Insider also broke the 2022 story on the allegation regarding Elon Musk exposing himself to a flight attendant, which Musk called a “politically motivated hit piece”:
And as we’re going to see in the following Tech Dirt piece, Musk and Ackman appear to be bonding over their mutual hatred of Business Insider. Bonding in the form of Musk tweeting out to Ackman about how he should sue Business Insider and Ackman responding by thanking Musk for be a “Free Speech Absolutist” who was willing to give Ackman a platform where he could make his case to the world and defend his wife. Days later, Musk’s X.com suddenly banned a number of journalists who had been critical of Musk or Ackman recently. The banned journalists eventually had their accounts restored, with Musk suggesting that it was all a mix up where sometimes they “do sweeps for spam/scam accounts and sometimes real accounts get caught up in them.” In other words, there’s a Musk/Ackman alliance of sensitive billionaires forming, commiserating, and presumably plotting ways of preventing future hurtful reporting:
“The simple fact is, any platform has to do some level of moderation, and as soon as you do that, you’re going to make mistakes. I’d give Elon and ExTwitter the benefit of the doubt that this was just a mistake if (a) he had done that to previous management, though he did not and (b) if the accounts in question weren’t all found to have recently criticized Elon and/or Bill Ackman.”
Yeah, it would be a lot easier to assume X.com just happened to accidentally catch all these journalists in anti-spam sweeps if it wasn’t for the fact that the banned accounts has all recently criticized Musk or Ackman. The benefit of the doubt is a bit too much to reasonably give in that situation. Ironically, note how Tulsi Gabbard was starting a new “news show” for X.com that she claims was started, in part, because “freedom of speech is a fundamental right in America”:
So Bill Ackman and Elon Musk appear to be forming some sort of hurt billionaire media-bullying alliance targeting Business Insider, which is ironically run by Mathias Doepfner who appears to be very willing to play ball with this bullying campaign.
It’s going to be grimly interesting to see how this plays out. It’s not hard to imagine that we continue to see a number of critical reports about Ackman and Musk, although perhaps not as many coming from Axel Springer-owned outlets. At the same time, it’s not just Ackman and Musk sending a message here. Doepfner is sending a message too, and not necessarily just to reporters working for Axel Springer-owned outlets. Reporting on powerful people will pose a risk to your career. That’s the message Doepfner ultimately sent to the industry. And that’s why it’s also not hard to imagine that we’re see a lot fewer critical stories about Ackman and maybe even Musk. Ackman’s intimidation ploy may not have entirely worked but, thanks to Mathias Doepfner’s curious politics, it didn’t really fail yet either.