How Germany's AfD plans to reshape public media

0:00Save with digital deals at Vons and Albertsons. This week at Vons and Albertsons, Ginny O, 93% lean ground turkey is 399 per pound, sold in a 3 pound tray with digital coupon limit two packages. And a 1 pound package of strawberries is 199 with digital coupon. Plus Kellogg's giant size cereal, 22.6 to 29.5 ounces, selected varieties are 299 each, with digital coupon limit three. Hurry in! Visit Vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Here in Germany, the far right AFD party is gaining strength having recently come out on top in two regional elections. Its policy program focuses on immigration control and Euro skepticism, but it also wants to radically overhaul Germany's public service broadcasting system. The AFD's media plans could soon be implemented in the state of Saxony Unhot, where it's closed to forming a government. Our political correspondent, Bettina Stakempa, sent us this report.

1:03Nine billion euros of funding for the public broadcasters, and what do we get in return? We get left-wing green propaganda, stupidity and agitation. Let's terminate the state media treaty. Let's ditch this compulsory fee. It was a big campaign promise of the alternative for Germany party, the termination of the so-called interstate media treaty, which governs broadcasting in Germany. But could the party, whose branch in Saxony Unhot, as classified by the domestic intelligence agency, as right-wing extremist, actually abolish public broadcasting? The AFD could take power in Saxony Unhot soon, raising the question whether the small German state could become a test case for the whole country. I believe that public broadcasting is the easiest target for an AFD government. It's very apparent that the AFD does not want independent reporting. The Far-right Party has prominent role models.

2:04US President Trump recently banned several media outlets that he disliked from entering the White House. But pressure on legacy media is also growing in Europe. In Hungary, the authoritarian government of Viktor Orbán has in practice restricted public broadcasting over many years, and it has legislated to prevent independent information. Slovakia recently did something similar. This is our immediate neighborhood. Germany's constitution stipulates that public broadcasts belong neither to the state nor to private companies or individuals. They manage themselves. It's one of the lessons learned from Germany's Nazi past, where state propaganda controlled the flow of information and manipulated public opinion. To ensure broadcasters can work freely and independently of the authorities, they are financed by a mandatory public broadcasting fee. Almost every household in Germany must pay around 18 euros per month for this, regardless of whether they use their watch or listen.

3:06Many people disagree with this, and the AFD is instrumentalising this sentiment. In Saxony, Anhardt, the party wants to abandon the state media treaty and cut off the local broadcaster MDR from the funding that it needs. That would mean that as of January 1st, 2029, MDR would have deceased its operations here in Saxony, Anhardt. MDR, Saxony Anhardt would simply no longer exist. I think it could trigger a domino effect as the first brick pulled out of the wall of public broadcasting. There is also concern at Radio Korax, a community radio station in the city of Halle. Korax broadcasts 24 hours a day in several languages with some content specifically tailored to refugees. It's run mostly by volunteers and receives funding from private donors as well as the state and the city. In its election manifesto, the AFD explicitly threatened to completely cut public funding for Korax. We're preparing ourselves for life to be made difficult for us, and the worst case scenario is

4:10that our funding will be withdrawn. The team are trying to prepare for the scenario by appealing for donations, but they fear it's not just about the money. We're trying to integrate refugees and displaced people. We also embrace the gender debate here. These are all things that people now want to try to roll back completely. To make everything completely different again, and to revive values that we regard as outdated. Even before any potential changes to the media treaty, Frered Independent reporting has come increasingly under threat. At AFD events across Germany,

5:10right-wing online influencers have a rest journalist, or denied the maxes. At Radio Korax, it's feared this is a sign of what to come. The horror scenario is that Saxony and Hutt will simply become a place for right-wing media and content creators. And that would mean that open left-wing humanistic projects would have to leave the state or would weather away. Legally, an AFD government would have a duty to ensure the provision of basic information to the public. But concerns remain that the state of Saxony and Hutt could become dominated by far-right influences and a pressure test for Germany's free and independent media. Our political correspondent Matthew Moore is following this story. Matthew, the AFD in Saxony and Hutt have promised to cancel the state's public broadcasting treaty as one of their first acts of government.

6:11Why do they want to do that? Why is this such a high priority for them? They make a number. Save with digital deals at Vons and Albertsons. This week at Vons and Albertsons, Ginny O, 93% lean ground turkey is 399 per pound, sold in a 3 pound tray with digital coupon limit two packages. And a 1 pound package of strawberries is 199 with digital coupon. Plus Kellogg's giant size serial, 22.6 to 29.5 ounces, selected varieties are 299 each, with digital coupon limit three. Hurry in, visit Vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

7:12The AFD now for a few years and Ori, see me whenever I was on the campaign trail listening to him speeches. There wasn't a single speech that went by where he didn't bash the media because it generated approval among the crowd. But it's also part of a strategy which he outlined to me in an interview, which is about the AFD really sees itself not as being elected or running for power to tinker with the system but to really address what they see as foundational problems in the system to change the system. And part of that Ori, Segment says, and this is the AFD leader in Saxony, and had says, is addressing the public broadcasting model, a model which has been in practice here for several decades in this particular state, but since the Second World War in Germany, and basically they see this model as getting out of control and they believe that if they, and he believes if he can get that majority in parliament, he could cancel that public broadcasting contract that it would really shuffle our shake, the media

8:17landscape in the state in Saxony Unheard. Is it really in the state government's authority, though, Matthew, to withdraw from public broadcasting treaties? Is there nothing that could prevent that? It is actually in their authority. So Ori, Segment needs, he would need a majority in the parliament. He doesn't have that majority right now, Terry, he's three seats short. There is another small party, the BSW party that he's in talks with. They have also been critical of the public broadcasting system in Germany, but they haven't gone as far as to say that they would terminate the public broadcasting contract. So we're interested to see whether they ever do reach a deal on that, but what must be said is even if they did secure a majority in parliament to terminate that contract, it would be challenged by MDR, the broadcaster there, in the courts, and the AFD knows that this is very legally contentious and that it would drag out over many years,

9:21no doubt. What would withdrawal from the public broadcasting system mean in practice? What would change for consumers of news and information in Saxony Unheard in the rest of Germany for that matter? Yeah, this was one of the questions that the local broadcaster there tried to address in the election campaign, but they weeded into it and kind of ran a campaign in the middle of the selection saying this is exactly what would happen if the AFD gets to power and gets that majority and does terminate the contract and they ran a campaign where the screens went blank because they know that for a lot of people they weren't truly aware of what the impact would be, there would be local news stations that would come off air, radio shows that would come off air culture programs that were targeted and produced in the States, Saxony Unheard would fall off air. That is, must be said, after the two-year period when the contract would actually finally come to an end. So, would have a big impact on local news coverage and entertainment and educational

10:25information coverage in the States. This is just one state we're talking about right now, Saxony Unheard, one of 16 states in Germany, not a terribly big or powerful state, but still important, is there broad support though in the rest of Germany for efforts to dismantle public broadcasting? Matthew? I don't think there is broad support to dismantle public broadcasting. What the AFD is doing in Saxony Unheard is tapping into something that has a mood that has built up in the last few years. It's a kind of anti-establishment, anti-elites, anti-arbon mood in many cases. A mood that is particularly prominent, I think, in the east of the country, kind of a rejection, if you like, of this information, this media landscape, this public broadcasting, media landscape that came from the post-war era. And they're tapping into this and there are raising questions about the money that goes into the public broadcast as the kind of

11:28program that they're doing and it's part of, as a state area strategy, to undermine one of the key pillars of parliamentary democracy, the free media, independent media, and at the moment there's not a majority to dismantle the public broadcasting system in this country, but you can see that the AFD by winning huge numbers of votes in the east and setting the agenda that they are having an impact on the debate in the country. And there are concerns really that if they did get their way, this could be the first dominoes we had in the report, the first domino to fall, if they were to cancel the public broadcasting contract in that state, or is it an exception? We simply do not know, but we can see that there is a very highly charged debate that's taking place right now. Matthew, thank you. That was our political correspondent Matthew Moore.