WDR journalist Claudia Zimmermann told her story of becoming a German whistleblower during an interview in Berlin, Thursday.
Zimmermann was working for the German public broadcasting institution for over 20 years when she gave an interview to Dutch radio L1, stating that German channels tend to cover the refugee crisis in Europe according to the government agenda.
Her interview caused outrage for WDR management. “First there was absolute chaos…Several times I was called into the office, then asked to leave it. The boss pondered, what we could do, so to speak, to minimize the damage,” Zimmermann said.
Although she was not officially fired, her ideas for coverage were approved less and less frequently, which led to her “kind of emotional burnout”.
She is still working on revealing the true situation within German media. “I would wish that many more colleagues dared to do more critical coverage”, said Zimmerman. “This is not about the journalists. The problem comes from the top to bottom,” she stated.