5 ms·

Austria: Vice-chancellor caught on secret video

44 points by novaRom 7y ago

novaRom 7y ago
I wonder if we'll not see more scandals like that. New digital interconnected world offers more chances to end political careers just overnight.
deogeo 7y ago
"She offers to buy a 50% stake in Austria's Kronen-Zeitung newspaper and switch its editorial position to support the Freedom Party." Little attention is usually paid to media ownership, yet this nicely shows how crucial it is. I've always found it odd how casual countries are on allowing foreign media ownership. A quick search turned up this: https://www.access-info.org/media-ownership-transparency https://www.access-info.org/media-ownership-transparency - apparently, even if one does pay attention, getting the information can be difficult.
- thatoneuser 7y ago
  This is an interesting conundrum. The govt can't outright pay media to spin a certain narrative (...obviously this happens but it has to go thru abstraction layers to get around laws) meanwhile a foreign entity doesn't really care and can just buy them out.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    But the government can make it difficult/impossible to hide the ownership of media. It could even mandate disclaimers, forcing media to declare their owners the same way drug commercials have to state side-effects.
acqq 7y ago
The news houses who published a video don’t say anything about who has made the video. But it was very professionally made some two years ago and used now.
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  Yes. So? People have known for a very long time that Strache and his party are a danger to democracy and human rights. For people with the means and the motive to set this up, it made sense to do it.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > Yes. So? Independently of condemning what the politician said the media tries to ignore that some “external power” directly orchestrates not only the compromise of the political party but also by carefully selected timing the outcomes of the political life in one european country and even more, in whole Europe. That secret power is definitely not the media house, they got the whole thing on the plate, carefully prepared. They just serve it. An everybody pretends that doesn’t matter?
    - deogeo 7y ago
      It sure mattered when wikileaks did it.
      - acqq 7y ago
        Wikileaks published leaks. But note: this was not a leak. This was a professionally created and organised blackmail-worthy compromising material given to the media two years after the creation at the point in time to make the biggest possible influence on the European politics and the media turning their head away from even trying to ask which power did that, with which financing and with which agenda.
        bob_doggo 7y ago
        ..."and the media turning their head away from even trying to ask which power did that, with which financing and with which agenda." what makes you say that? The original story at: https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-the-trap-e675751/ https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-t... clearly states: Neither Der Spiegel nor the Süddeutsche Zeitung have any reliable information about the motives of the people who set Strache this trap in 2017 or who they may have been working for. But one thing is clear following the evaluation of the material and verification of its authenticity by two experts: It is in the public interest to know how Strache and Gudenus, high-ranking representatives of the Austrian government and of their party, responded to dubious advances from a purported oligarch.
tom_mellior 7y ago
For a longer read with more background and details, here is the original writeup by Süddeutsche in English: https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-the-trap-e675751/ https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-t... (and not paywalled, unlike the German version)

44 points by novaRom 7y ago

I wonder if we'll not see more scandals like that. New digital interconnected world offers more chances to end political careers just overnight.

deogeo 7y ago

"She offers to buy a 50% stake in Austria's Kronen-Zeitung newspaper and switch its editorial position to support the Freedom Party." Little attention is usually paid to media ownership, yet this nicely shows how crucial it is. I've always found it odd how casual countries are on allowing foreign media ownership. A quick search turned up this: https://www.access-info.org/media-ownership-transparency https://www.access-info.org/media-ownership-transparency - apparently, even if one does pay attention, getting the information can be difficult.

thatoneuser 7y ago
This is an interesting conundrum. The govt can't outright pay media to spin a certain narrative (...obviously this happens but it has to go thru abstraction layers to get around laws) meanwhile a foreign entity doesn't really care and can just buy them out.
- deogeo 7y ago
  But the government can make it difficult/impossible to hide the ownership of media. It could even mandate disclaimers, forcing media to declare their owners the same way drug commercials have to state side-effects.

acqq 7y ago

The news houses who published a video don’t say anything about who has made the video. But it was very professionally made some two years ago and used now.

tom_mellior 7y ago
Yes. So? People have known for a very long time that Strache and his party are a danger to democracy and human rights. For people with the means and the motive to set this up, it made sense to do it.
- acqq 7y ago
  > Yes. So? Independently of condemning what the politician said the media tries to ignore that some “external power” directly orchestrates not only the compromise of the political party but also by carefully selected timing the outcomes of the political life in one european country and even more, in whole Europe. That secret power is definitely not the media house, they got the whole thing on the plate, carefully prepared. They just serve it. An everybody pretends that doesn’t matter?
  - deogeo 7y ago
    It sure mattered when wikileaks did it.
    - acqq 7y ago
      Wikileaks published leaks. But note: this was not a leak. This was a professionally created and organised blackmail-worthy compromising material given to the media two years after the creation at the point in time to make the biggest possible influence on the European politics and the media turning their head away from even trying to ask which power did that, with which financing and with which agenda.
      - bob_doggo 7y ago
        ..."and the media turning their head away from even trying to ask which power did that, with which financing and with which agenda." what makes you say that? The original story at: https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-the-trap-e675751/ https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-t... clearly states: Neither Der Spiegel nor the Süddeutsche Zeitung have any reliable information about the motives of the people who set Strache this trap in 2017 or who they may have been working for. But one thing is clear following the evaluation of the material and verification of its authenticity by two experts: It is in the public interest to know how Strache and Gudenus, high-ranking representatives of the Austrian government and of their party, responded to dubious advances from a purported oligarch.

tom_mellior 7y ago

For a longer read with more background and details, here is the original writeup by Süddeutsche in English: https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-the-trap-e675751/ https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-t... (and not paywalled, unlike the German version)