In recent decades, journalistic balance and objectivity have been increasingly neglected across the media landscape - in Germany on the part of the major leading media and, in particular, the public service media organisations. One-sidedness and inappropriate value judgements due to ideological bias or influence are becoming the rule rather than the regrettable exception in media products. In large newspaper publishing houses, there is usually a clearly recognisable political orientation in the editorial offices. Or publishers are owned by political parties. The Social Democratic Party of GermanySPD, maintains a media empire in Germany (1); the Christian Democrats are not inactive in this respect either (2).

One-sidedness, influence and ideological bias, which are increasingly spreading in the major media, are becoming a growing burden for Western societies and states. These conditions are primarily contributing to social division and irreconcilable differences in world views.

In reports and essays or scientific or factual contributions, complexity and objectivity should predominate. Opinions and evaluations in all types of contributions should be substantiated by factual reasons and be recognisable as an evaluation. Everyone should agree that certain opinions or deviations from an "opinion norm" are not bad or reprehensible, but must be accepted without judgement, even if this is difficult in some cases. If opinions or world views are categorised as "right" or "wrong" by media professionals, this creates division and irreconcilability in societies. The media must never go over to defending or codifying the narratives of governments or parties; on the contrary, they must question these narratives objectively and critically.

If the leading media continually and uncritically adopt the world view of the government and the leading parties, their actions are not journalism, but propaganda

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"You can recognise a good journalist by the fact [...] that he doesn't make common cause, not even a good cause". (- Hanns Joachim Friedrichs, born on 15 March 1927, died on 28 March 1995. Friedrichts had been a journalist and television presenter for news and sports programmes since the 1950s).

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ADVOCATUS VERITAS is primarily dedicated to topics or representations that do not appear in the large media houses or the state-affiliated media institutions or are characterised by one-sidedness there.

A diverse and balanced media landscape is essential if people's opinions are to be formed free from propaganda and indoctrination. The diversity of disseminated information, knowledge, perspectives and conclusions is the basis for opinion-forming, which is important for democratic communities based on the rule of law.

ADVOCATUS VERITAS aims to contribute to balance and diversity. Multilingualism is intended to promote mutual understanding and international understanding.

Comments

I urge you to write comments in a factual manner only and not to address insults or abuse in comments. Insulting, grossly unobjective or disparaging comments will not be published.

If you would like to, please indicate your country of residence at the end of your name or abbreviation.

Written presentation and explanations

In some places, readers - primarily German readers - will be surprised at the presentation when terms or proper names and abbreviations are explained twice and seemingly in a superfluous manner in brackets. However, this is for the comprehensibility and comprehensibility of the translations into different languages. Therefore, if duplications or abbreviations appear in some languages or words are written out that are usually abbreviated, there is usually a reason for this. (Or I have made a mistake after all...)

You also have to try to exclude certain text passages or terms from the automatic translation when entering texts, which is not always possible. Overall, the automatic translation by the AI tool, i.e. the translation supported by so-called artificial intelligence, must always be taken into account when formulating.

A few words about me

Born and raised in Germany, I have been inquisitive since my childhood in the 1970s and have been interested in all kinds of things, observing and collecting things and small animals and enjoying looking at and reading non-fiction books. I have always wanted to go back to the origins in one way or another and find out why something behaves the way it does. I have always been more thoughtful and serious than others, which is not easy in life.

I slowly progressed from nature and environmental issues in my youth to human development, social issues, culture, technology (especially all kinds of vehicles - classic machines), healthy eating, simple living and self-sufficiency and history to identity and politics and other things related to these. Simple or superficial explanations never satisfied me. Backgrounds and depth in topics provide the motivation to delve deeper into issues. Of course, you get bogged down and don't follow anything through to the end - versatility has its price.

As I have always had a certain outsider role since kindergarten and school, it still doesn't bother me today if I think differently, have a different concept of "knowledge" and certainty or hold completely different views to the majority around me. What I never came to terms with: Irrationality and malice, destruction and wastefulness - unfortunately you encounter all of this far too often, which really bothers me.

In the more than 20 years that I have been involved with politics, society and political parties in various ways, I have been able to get to know numerous publicists and noteworthy intellectuals and well-read people. I have been able to broaden my own horizons through enriching acquaintances and exchange inspiration in conversations. Over the years, I have noticed time and again that great research achievements by educated authors and important ideas in various media contributions are usually only published in one or at most two languages. Language barriers often form barriers to knowledge and to communication and mutual understanding. Here I want to take a step to counteract this a little.

Over the last 20 years, I have been a member of political organisations and have also co-founded two. Although my involvement with political parties and party membership has also been enriching, the frustration, disappointment and disillusionment have unfortunately far outweighed the benefits. Of course, I continue to cultivate friendships that arose from party memberships as far as possible. The experience and insights that I gained from membership of associations or parties are now also helpful in understanding processes. However, I intend to stay out of such organisations in future.

I've been through a lot professionally, starting with an apprenticeship in a trade. This was followed by all sorts of different jobs to earn money (just nothing that would make you rich). Numerous trips to different countries and a few longer stays abroad with some unusual jobs - in Canada, France and Switzerland - have also left their mark. Very special people, unconventional people and unusual situations have left their mark. In retrospect, I would have gladly done without many experiences and encounters. As is probably the case with everyone, there are many things I would have liked to cut out of my life. Most recently, I worked for seven years for members of parliament in a state parliament and in the German Bundestag.

And yes, I am aware that many of the texts here, whether my own or those of guest authors and other publicists, are long for the format of an internet blog and go beyond the scope of the usual. Some people will turn away. You don't want to read that much on a website. I've just been told that I can't do it like that.

That may be, but if I deal with a topic in more detail for a few days or weeks, I don't want it to become a book, so I'll do it this way. I can only ask you to try to deal with topics that you consider important - please read, even if it takes a little longer!

Thank you very much

Quay (March 2024)

P.S. I love trees and forests, so please don't be irritated by occasional pictures of trees or landscape.

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Working principles (page line)

Preliminary remark

ADVOCATUS VERITAS is driven by the need to create and disseminate balanced and factual content for international users. It is dedicated to controversial and contentious topics that are often omitted or treated one-sidedly in other media.

Basics

ADVOCATUS VERITAS is an independent medium which is primarily operated via its own website. In future, contributions of various kinds can be offered in different formats - text, image, film, sound. Due to the multilingualism, sound and film naturally present a greater difficulty than pure text. In the medium term, the use of social media is also planned. Co-operation with other media companies or freelance journalists or website operators or bloggers and publicists is part of the work of ADVOCATUS VERITAS.

ADVOCATUS VERITAS does not provide a regularly published programme. The programme focuses on society, politics, the economy, energy use, science, culture, the environment and history.

The work of ADVOCATUS VERITAS will be financed for the time being and in the medium term by donations, advertising revenue and, where possible, through economic co-operation with other media companies or entrepreneurs.

The principles

• ADVOCATUS VERITAS is primarily committed to the liberal, secular constitutional state as well as the sovereignty and freedom of states and the right to self-determination of peoples and individuals.
• One of ADVOCATUS VERITAS' main tasks is to highlight dangers to the rule of law and explain their background.
• International exchange and international understanding are fundamental to the work of ADVOCATUS VERITAS and are also objectives of its activities.
• ADVOCATUS VERITAS' journalistic diligence through its own research, verification of reports and sources as well as objectivity in reports are the guiding principles. This also includes avoiding one-sided representations, countering the one-sidedness of leading media or prevailing narratives and doing justice to a complex topic by finding out the statements of different sides or conflicting parties and presenting different points of view. As ADVOCATUS VERITAS sees itself as a corrective to the representations primarily published in the leading media, the focus is on points of view and the highlighting of aspects and positions that are not emphasised in these mass media.
• Agency reports can be a source for ADVOCATUS VERITAS on a topic or a report, but are not the only basis. ADVOCATUS VERITAS does not see its task as reproducing agency reports or assessments from press agencies on its own, without checking them.
• Reports and essays, own opinions, comments and opinions expressed by others must be labelled as such or be recognisable and thus distinguishable from each other for users.
• ADVOCATUS VERITAS is not in the service of a political party, the government of a state, a specific organisation, a professional association or does not serve the interests of specific groups and refrains from exerting influence on its work.
• The acceptance of donations must not undermine this principle of objectivity and neutrality.
• ADVOCATUS VERITAS sees itself as a means and opportunity for further education and the formation of differentiated opinions. ADVOCATUS VERITAS is not aimed at specific population groups or a specific clientele, but at everyone who is interested in the content provided.
• The content of ADVOCATUS VERITAS is mainly compiled and reproduced in German. It is our constant endeavour to publish a large number of contributions in other languages and thus to make them comprehensible to a much larger number of users worldwide and to promote the exchange of knowledge and expertise across language barriers. It may be decided not to translate certain contributions into all possible languages.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is largely used for translation. If texts in certain translations are linguistically inadequate or incomprehensible, suggestions and corrections will be gladly accepted.

Please contact mail@advocatus-veritas.com for more information.

Linguistic expression and "gender-equitable language"

For the sake of comprehensibility, brevity and conciseness of texts and grammatical correctness, the generic masculine is used. "Gender-equitable language", on the other hand, breaks with linguistic logic, traditional language development and language habits.

There is a conscious decision not to use "gender-appropriate language". This is (at least in Germany) not accepted by the majorityis increasingly proving unsuitable for everyday use and leads to misunderstandings, especially when spoken.

Furthermore, "gender-inclusive language" makes translations into other languages considerably more difficult and harbours the risk of errors and comprehension difficulties when translated into different languages.

It goes without saying that the use of the generic masculine refers to both female and male genders or all possible genders, which is evident from the wording and context of a text. The use of the generic masculine, instead of ostensibly gender-equitable language, is of course not intended to deliberately omit a gender that is not explicitly mentioned.

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Footnotes:

(1) German parties as a media empire, here states on the media participation of the Social Democrats (SPD): <The SPD's media investment is a strong, indirect investment by the SPD in several German media. The SPD is the 100 per cent owner of Deutsche Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft (DDVG). DDVG in turn has a stake in over 40 German daily newspapers, whose total circulation is estimated at 2.2 million copies. This circulation represents over 10% of the newspapers sold daily in Germany. The SPD is therefore the only party in Germany with such a media monopoly. The party regularly asserts that it has no influence whatsoever on reporting. However, critics accuse it of doing this deliberately and speak of an "SPD media empire" or "SPD media monopoly". It was not until 2008, for example, that the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag systematically analysed the existing interdependenciesRadio stations owned by the SPD are also listed. Further information here and in an older article here

(2) Compared with the Social Democrats (SPD), the Christian Union parties (CDU and CSU) only have a Minor media involvement there. However, political parties have further opportunities to Influence on major mediaespecially the public service media organisations. Also illustrative is a Older elaboration by the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag, from 2008. Anyone who still believes in the independence of the leading German media from politics is living in a bubble of illusions.