To the point: Summer theater 2
Since Patrik Müller brought the Geri Müller sex selfies, at least verbally, into the newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag on Sunday a week ago, not a day went by where the affair was not reported somewhere in Switzerland, but also abroad.
The moral aspects repeatedly mentioned by Müller (during working hours, in the office, from the National Council chamber) led to the fact that very (all too?) quickly there was no longer much discussion about whether the publication of the story was legal or not.
The usual media hype broke out. After all, everything was there: older political celebrity, much younger woman, sex. The media trumped each other with new findings - often these were just copied and slightly rephrased. But there were also new findings: at least Blick, SonntagsZeitung and Weltwoche - so it was said - had the story for a long time, but did not break it. The age of the chat partner was changed from 21 to 33, because the SDA apparently got things mixed up. The chat partner was also talked to, she was quoted extensively. There were indications that she was suicidal, and the police intervened in response to corresponding telephone calls from Geri Müller and questioned the lady. Politicians and opinion leaders were concerned and astonished, media critics expressed themselves, psychologists tried to explain. SRF ran a media club after just two days, and social media went wild. Geri Müller appeared with his lawyer at a press conference where no questions were allowed.
The whole thing developed into a media tsunami that no one could control. Google News now has more than 38,000 hits under the keyword Geri-Selfies, and the Swiss media database has 135.
So it's one of the usual media embarrassment stories? You could have thought that for a long time. But it doesn't stop there, it continues. When Geri Müller tried to involve Josef Bollag, the president of the Jewish Community of Baden, everything took on another dimension. A political one. It turns out that some well-known politicians knew the story more or less in detail. When Sacha Wigdorovits, ex-journalist, today owner of a communication agency, declared friend of Israel and therefore also Geri Müller's enemy, appeared around the story, it got completely out of hand. The word Jew opened the floodgates. Anti-Semitic statements were published on social networks under full name recognition, which clearly violate criminal law. The first indictments are already underway.
The discussion about quality must continue. Sex images are harmless - anti-Semitism is not. Instrumentalization and spin doctors must become an issue.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
pc.meier@werbewoche.ch
