Everyone tries to wring meaning from their existence.
Of course, this also applies to journalists, perhaps even more so.
So why journalism?
Many representatives of the subject see their purpose above all in informing the readers.
Others, on the other hand, find nothing wrong with entertaining them or even cheering them up.
Timo Frasch
Political correspondent in Munich.
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A special species are the colleagues who see themselves as investigative journalists, which often means that they act as if they have found something scandalous after a sweaty search, which was actually just passed to them or fell into their laps in the exercise of their extraordinary private lives.
For some journalists it is enough to enjoy the beauty of their own text;
related to literature one would speak of "l'art pour l'art".
Others, on the other hand, more and more, see themselves in the tradition of “art engagé”, they want to make an impact.
There are those who carve a notch in their desk for every forced resignation, but also those who want to make the world a better place.
So does the author of these lines, Bayern correspondent for the FAZ. But how do you want to achieve a positive effect and also measure it when the main subject of the reporting is Markus Söder and the CSU?
Inflationary terms
The Bavarian Prime Minister had his green phase two or three years ago, in which climate protection and species protection were at the top of his agenda.
Was he inspired by our articles that pointed in a similar direction?
It's not entirely out of the question, but it's also not very likely.
Söder has so many advisors on these questions and, above all, his own inspirations that our opinion should have reached him at best as homeopathic doses.
So let's look at an area that is easier to isolate epistemologically than climate and species protection, and therefore a not quite as broad field in which Söder may allow journalists more competence than the top officials in his state chancellery: language.
Just two examples.
Shortly before the 2018 state elections, we wrote about "his inflationary use of the terms 'genuine' and 'honest', especially when it is not a confession at all, and certainly not a risky one".
It would have been easy for Söder to quietly stop using the words afterwards, or at least to sneak them out.
No one would have interpreted that as falling over, but it would have made it less vulnerable.
Alone: He continued to use the words undeterred, even more so, most recently again in the “Report from Berlin”: “After just one or two months, to be honest, this whole magic [the traffic light] is gone.” Or: “Honestly, everyone is waiting for it whether there is actually a vaccination requirement.”
Lap dance and leather pants?
Another Söder quirk is alliteration.
We've also skewered that several times, for example in November: "Most recently, Söder coined the phrase 'Binding and bundling', with the CSU headquarters also trying to experiment with a variation on the classic 'laptop and lederhosen'.
Hot candidate: 'lap dance and leather pants'.”
But again our words seemed to come to nothing.
Because what did the Prime Minister present a little later as a possible new Bayern slogan?
"Leberkäse and Laser." But it didn't stop there.
In the meantime, even Söder's party friends are using alliteration extensively, most recently Health Minister Klaus Holetschek "Adapt and be careful" in relation to corona policy.
However, Alexander Dobrindt shot the bird off when he spoke of “disunity, unreliability and inaction” (in relation to the traffic light) at the retreat of his CSU state group – and of three crises that exist: “Prices, Putin, pandemic”. .
It now needs "leadership instead of mirage", incidentally it is "opposition opportunity".
What's going on there?
It really cannot be that the CSU does not read our texts.
Söder, in particular, tends to read tomorrow's newspapers in the evening and occasionally lets them know if he doesn't think the Bavarian position, i.e. that of the CSU, i.e. his own, is sufficiently journalistic.
Another explanation for his stubbornness: He possibly believes that he got to the Bavarian State Chancellery with his very own means, so advice from a branch of a Hessian newspaper house did not necessarily lead to any further.
But it could also be decisive that criticism of Söder's use of language and that of the CSU is often clothed in irony, including ours, including here.
Many do not understand irony – but that should not be the problem with Söder.
Rather, he and his party have nothing against irony, in fact they do a great deal to force reporting to be ironic: criticism loses its harshness in this way.
But maybe they all feel caught together - and in order not to let it show, they are looking to flee forward, like Söder with climate protection.
Honestly, that would still be a sign that sometimes words work like weapons.