ARD chairman Tom Buhrow defended himself against criticism that he had buckled in front of right-wing circles in the dispute over the "environmental sow" video of the WDR children's choir. "No, I'm not," he told SPIEGEL. "You can't stop these kinds of people, you can't control them. And I don't make my decisions dependent on them."
- Read the full interview with Tom Buhrow here
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The WDR recognized the mechanisms of right-wing mobilization, "but we were also able to distinguish between what is orchestrated and what is genuine expression from otherwise well-meaning listeners. And we really had hundreds of senior citizens and their grandchildren on the phone. It was immediately clear to us that these people were not part of an orchestrated cause ".
The WDR director defended the decision to block the video and apologize. "We can't just pretend that a large part of our audience feels wrongly attacked. Should I say to them that you are rightly instrumentalized and your feelings are therefore irrelevant? We can do not hide behind the freedom of satire and say: We are right, dear listener, and that you feel that way is wrong. "
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