A lot of times when I get messages from people who read and share articles from "journalists" of the Axel Springer network, they get the impression that when police and prosecutors, politicians and "experts" talk with them, they must be doing some pretty good investigations and what they write is reliable and ethical journalism.
That’s also a lot of times a wrong assumption based on the trust we put in journalists to stick to the highest standards of reporting by trade. But these are no journalists, these are writers for hire that will sing any song as long as they get paid in cash and attention.
If someone wants to plant a thought in your head, like there is a huge problem with German far-left activists waging "war" against the infrastructure and people, while applying emotional pressure to you with the story of the poor man on ventilation who was slowly dying, which is a false representation, as this man never was at risk of life, they could have kept him on battery ventilation in his flat for days if necessary with mobile power stations and replaceable battery packs they have for exactly that reason and everyone who ever worked with rescue workers knows that.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is, what is their motivation to write an article like that and is there a bigger overall motive behind this kind of coverage?
With Axel Springer Publishing and their CEO, it’s easy to find out. As there are plenty of journalists who cover what and how they do it.
and then work yourself from there to find more English-speaking articles about the whole Axel Springer Publishing complex and the kind of journalism they do to make up your own mind if that is a source you can and should trust, or even share with others.
In my opinion this isn’t investigative journalism, it’s agenda journalism.
You can see this article break apart quite easily if you question some of the facts presented in the article and how the journalists purposefully don’t give you any proof for them and go to the “ trust us, bro” base.
Everyone speaks under anonymity, nobody wants to go on the record.
The letter announcing responsibility is never presented as being authentic. They couldn’t even find proof for that. There is a million euros on the heads of the suspected perpetrators, the same amount the US put on Bin Laden’s son, Hamza. But not a single arrest in connection with this attack.
There is no question that attacking the energy infrastructure, no matter by whom, is an attack on every citizen, and whoever did this needs to get the whole weight of the security services on their neck.
But to be fair, there is still no proof that this was in fact Antifa activists, all investigations, including a million euros bounty and kicking down doors, brought exactly 0 arrests.
So you’d be wise to ask yourself why the boys at Politico are crying wolf, and in whose interest they do it.
this was my gut reaction too. these people are being targeted for a reason and the people behind this outlet don’t like that reason so they’re gonna do their best to turn you against the perpetrators
They just want you to eat your lunch, not to ask stupid questions about whether it was ethically sourced or how much rat milk is in that sauce.
It is also kind of interesting that they couldn’t get a single journalist from the OG Politico staff to put one of their names under it. So this is basically pushing "Die Welt" content into the English-speaking / US hemisphere disguised under the Politico brand label.
The only person in relation to Politico is the illustrator who, at least for me, added her own little detail of artistic protest by colouring the nails of the man in the picture, who eerily looks like Doepfner while leaving his toenails out and absolutely half-assing the fires.
Something the ultra-conservative chief doofus would rage about if he actually read the shit his staff writes and not just the metrics.
Lennart Pfahler and Philipp Woldin are reporters for WELT. Alexander Dinger is WELT’s investigations editor.
I didn’t see that disclaimer the first time I read the article, but it’s kind of a statement by itself, they are distancing this clearly from Politico staff-written content.
I'm curious to read this "Disconnect" 58 page document they're talking about in the article but don’t see it anywhere via search engines.
I found it here: https://capulcu.noblogs.org/english/
Nice! What search did you use?
A lot of times when I get messages from people who read and share articles from "journalists" of the Axel Springer network, they get the impression that when police and prosecutors, politicians and "experts" talk with them, they must be doing some pretty good investigations and what they write is reliable and ethical journalism.
That’s also a lot of times a wrong assumption based on the trust we put in journalists to stick to the highest standards of reporting by trade. But these are no journalists, these are writers for hire that will sing any song as long as they get paid in cash and attention.
If someone wants to plant a thought in your head, like there is a huge problem with German far-left activists waging "war" against the infrastructure and people, while applying emotional pressure to you with the story of the poor man on ventilation who was slowly dying, which is a false representation, as this man never was at risk of life, they could have kept him on battery ventilation in his flat for days if necessary with mobile power stations and replaceable battery packs they have for exactly that reason and everyone who ever worked with rescue workers knows that.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is, what is their motivation to write an article like that and is there a bigger overall motive behind this kind of coverage?
With Axel Springer Publishing and their CEO, it’s easy to find out. As there are plenty of journalists who cover what and how they do it.
You could start with a piece from 2022:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-...
and
https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/boost-for-the-...
and
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/08/how-axel-sprin...
and then work yourself from there to find more English-speaking articles about the whole Axel Springer Publishing complex and the kind of journalism they do to make up your own mind if that is a source you can and should trust, or even share with others.
In my opinion this isn’t investigative journalism, it’s agenda journalism.
You can see this article break apart quite easily if you question some of the facts presented in the article and how the journalists purposefully don’t give you any proof for them and go to the “ trust us, bro” base.
Everyone speaks under anonymity, nobody wants to go on the record.
The letter announcing responsibility is never presented as being authentic. They couldn’t even find proof for that. There is a million euros on the heads of the suspected perpetrators, the same amount the US put on Bin Laden’s son, Hamza. But not a single arrest in connection with this attack.
There is no question that attacking the energy infrastructure, no matter by whom, is an attack on every citizen, and whoever did this needs to get the whole weight of the security services on their neck.
But to be fair, there is still no proof that this was in fact Antifa activists, all investigations, including a million euros bounty and kicking down doors, brought exactly 0 arrests.
So you’d be wise to ask yourself why the boys at Politico are crying wolf, and in whose interest they do it.
this was my gut reaction too. these people are being targeted for a reason and the people behind this outlet don’t like that reason so they’re gonna do their best to turn you against the perpetrators
I had no idea Politico was Axel Springer or that Axel Springer owned so much. The article is indeed dishonest.
That is intended.
They just want you to eat your lunch, not to ask stupid questions about whether it was ethically sourced or how much rat milk is in that sauce.
It is also kind of interesting that they couldn’t get a single journalist from the OG Politico staff to put one of their names under it. So this is basically pushing "Die Welt" content into the English-speaking / US hemisphere disguised under the Politico brand label.
The only person in relation to Politico is the illustrator who, at least for me, added her own little detail of artistic protest by colouring the nails of the man in the picture, who eerily looks like Doepfner while leaving his toenails out and absolutely half-assing the fires.
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/imag...
Something the ultra-conservative chief doofus would rage about if he actually read the shit his staff writes and not just the metrics.
Lennart Pfahler and Philipp Woldin are reporters for WELT. Alexander Dinger is WELT’s investigations editor.
I didn’t see that disclaimer the first time I read the article, but it’s kind of a statement by itself, they are distancing this clearly from Politico staff-written content.