ServusTV was targeted by the media authority KommAustria because of the program “Der Wegscheider”, which is designed by the broadcaster’s director Ferdinand Wegscheider himself. The authority has initiated proceedings against the broadcaster, report “profil” and the “Kurier”. KommAustria is examining whether ServusTV violates the legal principles of objectivity and journalistic diligence.
The trigger for the procedure was a statement of facts by the Concordia press club, which was submitted to the Media Authority in December. In the eleven-page statement of facts, the journalist organization states that “its members have received increasing amounts of information and complaints about Servus TV’s reporting on the Covid 19 pandemic”.
Especially in the case of the weekly program “Der Wegscheider”, “repeated and serious violations of the provisions of the AMD-G (Audiovisual Media Services Act, note)Wegscheider claimed, for example, that the federal government was basing its corona decisions on “conjectures from a few simulation researchers”, whose “forecasts have not been correct once in all this time”. “Inconsistent with the facts” and a “deliberate disparagement of scientific methods”. be that, according to the press club Concordia.
In the presentation of the facts, one can also read about “systematic deficiencies in the overall program”, which reinforce the “impression of a targeted strategic positioning of Servus TV to address target groups that are hostile to science and critical of vaccination and corona measures”.
After months of preliminary examination of the facts of the case, KommAustria apparently sees sufficient suspicion that a violation of the law may have occurred. The broadcaster ServusTV, which belongs to the Red Bull Media House, emphasized in a brief statement to “profil” and “Kurier”: “We follow the legal process and first give our opinion to the authorities.”
Source: Nachrichten
