The Guttenberg Plagiarism Scandal

Introduction

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg received his doctorate in 2007. In 2011, less than one and a half years into his term as Germany’s Secretary of Defense, a newspaper revealed that he had plagiarized his dissertation (Preuss & Schultz, 2011). The ensuing plagiarism scandal put journalists in Germany into “a barely ever experienced state of emergency […], which approached intellectual civil war” (Mohr, 2011). During the plagiarism scandal in February and March 2011, Germany’s top five circulated dailies ¹ covered Guttenberg mostly negatively in 348 stories (Jansen, 2012). British and U.S. news media, such as the New York Times (Kimmelman, 2011; Pfanner, 2011), Time (Boston, 2011), Cable News Network (2011), British Broadcasting Corporation (2011), Reuters (2011), the Economist (2011), and the Guardian (Pidd, 2011), puzzled over the scandal. International news media, however, did not address the extensive German news media coverage of Guttenberg before his plagiarism was discovered. During Guttenberg’s career in national politics, from 2009 to 2011, no other politician received such attention in German news media. Between November 2008 and April 2010, Germany’s six leading print news media ² covered Guttenberg in nearly 600 mostly positive articles (Hemmelmann, 2011). Between December 2009 and February 2011, Germany’s 23 leading broadcast and print news media ³ published more than 16,500 stories about Guttenberg, shifting toward a more negative coverage shortly before and during the plagiarism affair, according to a Media Tenor study (Schwegler, 2011).

This study textually analyzes the 10 cover stories of Guttenberg in Germany’s leading news magazines Spiegel, Focus, and Stern prior, during, and after the plagiarism scandal, between July 2009 and March 2011, covering a longer period than previous studies. Other than Hemmelmann (2011) and Jansen (2012), this study focuses on all three news magazines; both studies did not include Stern. Previous studies did not apply the theory of myth through news to explain the heightened news media attention to Guttenberg. Hemmelmann used theories of agenda setting, framing, image building, and mechanisms of news media coverage of politics. Jansen (2012) and Media Tenor (Schwegler, 2011) did not include theoretical frameworks.

This study argues that it is necessary to analyze the underlying narrative that fueled such a sustained and intense coverage of Guttenberg before and after the plagiarism scandal. News magazines capture stories of continued interest and offer analysis and stories in a longer format beyond fast-paced daily journalism. Consequently, Germany’s three leading news magazines, Spiegel, Focus, and Stern, were used for a textual analysis. This study applied the theory by Lule (2001) that journalism transports myth and Carey’s (1989) notion of journalism as ritualistic communication. On a practical level, this study urges journalists to reflect larger patterns in news coverage beyond the editorial, historical, and economic backgrounds of their news outlets. It warns journalists not to oversimplify complex political stories.

Guttenberg’s Career: News and Myth

Guttenberg entered national politics in 2009 amidst a difficult climate: only 70.8% of Germans voted in the national election, a record low since 1949 (Bundeswahlleiter, 2009). He quickly became one of the most popular politicians in Germany, first as secretary of economy, then as secretary of defense. As much as Chancellor Angela Merkel accommodates German preferences for separating private and professional lives, she often has been perceived as dull, with her husband, a renowned chemistry professor, equally disliking public appearances (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2005). Merkel’s somber decorum was a welcome change after the previous “media chancellor” Gerhard Schröder (König, 2002). But after several years of covering her, news media were ready for someone who enjoyed their attention.

Focus and Stern interpreted Guttenberg’s career along the hero myth, which includes the elements of “a miraculous but common birth, demonstration of superhuman strength and ability, rapid rise to prominence or power, triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, proneness to pride, and ultimate decline through betrayal or sacrifice resulting in death” (El-Shamy, 2010, p. 653). For instance, Stern wrote:

[Guttenberg is] someone who is different than the others: young, smartly dressed and speaking a flowery language. [He is] an aristocrat without airs and graces, with family assets that are worth millions and a lineage going back to the 14th century. [He is] married to the great great granddaughter of Bismarck. ⁴ [He is] a climber coming from above, unheard of. (Vornbäumen, 2009)

Focus and Stern saw Guttenberg’s rapid rise in his move from obscure local politician to secretary of economy in the federal government. Both magazines portrayed him as possessing “superhuman” political powers, for instance when dealing with the bankrupt automaker Opel. Later, as defense secretary, he abolished conscription and called Germany’s engagement in Afghanistan a “war”—something no other German politician had done so directly before. In addition to these “triumphs,” Guttenberg unexpectedly survived the investigations into two military affairs. Focus and Stern portrayed these affairs as fighting “evil forces,” over which the hero Guttenberg ultimately won victory. They identified the plagiarism of his dissertation as his downfall, the loss of his doctoral title and his subsequent resignation as defense secretary as “political death.” They interpreted his attempt to return to politics as failed. Guttenberg admitted his “political death” at the time in an open letter in early 2012.

In contrast, Spiegel countered the hero narrative from the beginning by using fairy tale metaphors to criticize and ridicule Guttenberg. Its first cover called Guttenberg “disenchanted.” The cover story investigated Guttenberg’s responsibility in political affairs. A second cover mocked him and his wife as “The fabulous Guttenbergs.” The third cover, during the plagiarism scandal, was titled: “The Fairly Tale of the Honest Karl” (Figure 1). OPEN IN VIEWER

Each news magazine reported on Guttenberg’s career according to its own editorial, historical, and economic background. Nevertheless, all three magazines remained within a discourse centering on the hero myth.

Theory and Literature Review

Myths are models that give meaning and values to human life: They supply a blueprint to achieve something that was done before (Eliade, 1975). Humans combine facts and interpretations to create narratives in which mythical elements imbue events with “the odor of meaning or significance” (White, 1973, p. 294). This process continues in modern society in which shared memories are constructed to “negotiate between available historical records and current social and political agendas” (Zerubavel, 1995, p. 5). One modern form that myth takes is news.

Parallel to their prominence in mythology, heroines/heroes are the most pervasive figures in news that carries myths (Lule, 2001). Heroines/heroes “symbolize and reflect the process of both individual and societal growth and development, they resonate with the inner and outer needs and desires of all human beings” (El-Shamy, 2010, p. 656). Heroines/heroes have gained momentum in modern society in which ritual decays and inherited religions disintegrate, shifting meaning from groups to the self-expression of the individual: “Not the animal world, not the plant world, not the miracle of spheres, but man himself is now the crucial mystery” (Campbell, 2008, p. 337). In the European context, especially a “noble origin” has been part of the myth of an Aryan, primordial ancestor imbued with purity, physical strength, and heroic ethos (Eliade, 1975).

Over the past three decades, researchers from different disciplines have studied the meaning of commemorative narratives and rituals in contemporary society, including journalism (Edy, 1999; Lule, 2001; Zelizer, 1992; Zerubavel, 1995). Zerubavel (1995) demonstrated, in her case study on the construction of Israeli National Culture, how ancient elements were interwoven and reinterpreted in modern events to create grand narratives to reaffirm national identity. While Zerubavel referred to state actors, a similar pattern has been observed for journalists’ construction of news (Lule, 2001). As myth, news uses familiar narratives to offer comfort and a sense of control, explaining the incomprehensible and novel as “soothingly predictable” (Bird & Dardenne, 2009, p. 206; Lule, 2001). While Lule (2001) pointed to seven master myths being used in journalism, Bird (2005) cautions that particular times and places can produce their own “cultural moments and narratives, rooted in particular histories” (p. 226). The strong link between (commemorative) journalism and rituals that sustain society has been theorized by Carey’s (1989) ritual view of communication. He highlights that news is not directed:

toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs. […] the archetypal case under a ritual view is the sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship and commonality (p. 18).

In other words, “commemorative rituals and stories may serve as a means of developing unity in the wake of social discord rather than a means of celebrating unity” (Edy, 1999, p. 83). Edy cautions that commemorative journalism needs to remain a space to negotiate the meaning of the past rather than solidifying a hegemonic reading of memories. Similarly, Steiner (2002) raised the question which myths are used in news to convey different social-cultural contexts. As media scholars increasingly accept the idea that news carries myth, they warn that such use can oversimplify stories (Steiner, 2002). While meaning making rests with the audience (Hall, 1973), it is limited by prechosen conditions. Meaning making requires an effort to go beyond an initial glance (Mendelson, 2007). Especially pictures can “impose meaning at one stroke, without analysing or diluting it” (Barthes, 1987, p. 110), highlighting certain aspects while obscuring others.

For instance, Kitch (2002) concluded that the coverage of U.S. President John F. Kennedy confirmed the significance of journalism in reaffirming national beliefs and the use of the hero myth to make sense of unexpected tragedy. Similarly, Zelizer (1992) demonstrated how journalists who covered the assassination of Kennedy became “authoritative spokespersons” who shaped the collective memory of the event (p. 2). In a study of German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle (comparable to Voice of America), Silcock (2002) concluded that myths were used to construct a new German national identity. Comparing U.S. and German coverage of the 1992 earth summit, Opt (1997) found that it was influenced by national myths. Musolff (2012) and Lü (2008) demonstrated how German news media recontextualized national myths with which Germans could identify.

This study asks: How did Germany’s leading news magazines, Spiegel, Focus, and Stern, use the hero myth to cover the political career of Guttenberg?

Method

News magazines typically publish stories of continuing interest in longer formats. They combine photos, graphics, and texts in reflective analysis in contrast to the fast-paced updates of daily journalism. Especially, their print versions provide good periodic snapshots of unfolding narratives compared with the volatile content on their Web sites. For these reasons, the print versions of Germany’s leading news magazines, Spiegel, Focus, and Stern, offered the best possible material to analyze the narratives of the Guttenberg coverage. The three magazines also publish their print versions online, update their Web sites several times daily and offer additional content (Noelle-Neumann, Schultz, & Wilke, 2004). This content, however, is only accessible to the 77% of Germans who go online (ARD/ZDF Onlinestudie, 2013). In contrast, almost all Germans can see and buy a print issue on the street. Print magazine use has been slowly declining, but more than 90% of Germans still read magazines (Lang, 2013).

During Guttenberg’s debut in national politics in February 2009 and his retirement in January 2012 (for the time being), all three magazines published 10 Guttenberg covers and cover stories. Spiegel and Stern each published three covers and cover stories; Focus published four (Figure 1).

The majority of their readers are men: 68% of Spiegel, 67% of Focus, and 59% of Stern readers. Regarding education, 23% of Stern, 25% of Focus, and 35% of Spiegel readers hold a college degree. More than 80% of each magazine’s readers are 30 years or older; more than half of each magazine’s readers are in the highest earning third of the population (MA Media-Analyse AG, 2014). The three magazines count many journalists among their readers (Weischenberg, 2002). Spiegel is the “most important medium” for journalists (Meyn, 2004, p. 104); two thirds read it regularly. In sum, the magazines mostly garner an elite audience.

Over the past 15 years, only Spiegel has increased its subscriptions, making up almost half of its distributed copies; Focus and Stern sell most issues on the street (IVW, 2014; Figure 2). A compelling cover remains crucial for all three magazines to make a sales pitch to passersby: “To evoke an immediate and involuntary response within the viewer, images are often more efficient than text alone” (Popp & Mendelson, 2010, p. 205). OPEN IN VIEWER

This study used textual analysis to discern patterns (Berger, 1998) and the most likely (i.e., to most people) interpretations of a given text (McKee, 2006). This involved a “long, preliminary soak” (Hall, 1975, p. 15), reading all of the three magazines’ 10 cover stories and editorials that referred to Guttenberg and studying the cover photos and photos in the cover stories ⁵ to reach a deep understanding of and familiarity with them. Particular attention was paid to the cover photos and headlines. This allowed for an extraction of larger themes to compare the magazines’ approaches to covering Guttenberg and to interpret them in the context of German culture, the magazines’ backgrounds and the theories of the hero myth in news and ritualisic communication. In total, this study analyzed 32 pages and 21 photos in Spiegel, 46 pages and 50 photos in Stern, and 42 pages and 36 photos in Focus.

Two Hero Tales and a Counternarrative

To juxtapose the approaches of the three news magazines, the analysis follows the chronology of events. It begins with the first of all 10 covers across the three magazines in 2009 and ends with the last cover in 2011 (Figure 1). Before detailing the coverage, a brief background for each magazine is provided.

Spiegel [Mirror] has been Germany’s longest running news magazine, an opinion leader (Kleinsteuber & Thomass, 2010) and the “most quoted publication” (Schrag, 2007, p. 163). Spiegel’s first issue appeared in 1947; it has built a reputation for critical, investigative coverage and showing “the other side of the coin” (Meyn, 2004, p. 103). Spiegel has been lauded for providing independent journalism, information beyond the reports of daily newspapers, and addressing unpopular topics (Meyn, 2004). But Spiegel has also earned the reputation to frequently ridicule politicians of the conservative Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian-based sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) (Meyn, 2004), of which Guttenberg has been a member. Spiegel shares a special history with the CSU because of the Spiegel Affair. In 1962, Franz Josef Strauß, defense secretary and CSU star, had to resign after it was discovered that he was responsible for raiding Spiegel newsrooms and arresting journalists. Strauß had alleged that Spiegel had committed treason by claiming that Germany’s defenses were weak. But Germany’s highest court declared the raid and arrests by Strauß to be illegal and in violation of the press freedom.

Stern [Star] started publishing in 1948 (Minkmar, 2000), striving to reveal scandals and “occasionally finding them where none exist” (Meyn, 2004, p. 110). It became known for publishing what were ostensibly Hitler’s diaries but turned out to be fakes. Stern developed a reputation for checkbook journalism, which a former Stern publisher defended as necessary to reveal political affairs (Meyn, 2004).

The history of Focus is much shorter. Focus started publishing in 1993, mostly offering “news you can use,” such as rankings of schools and health providers. It uses more colored photographs, graphics, and shorter articles than its main rival Spiegel. Focus strives to provide service journalism to its readers while also being entertaining. It features a mostly positive outlook, targeting a “younger info-elite” ⁶ (Meyn, 2004, p. 106). Focus is less of a watchdog and critic of politics than Spiegel but offers a broader range of and more opinions by politicians, celebrities, and aggrieved parties (Stockmann, 1999).

2009—The Discovery

2010—Rise

Spiegel—“Fabulous”

Spiegel (2010a) publishes its second mocking cover story shortly after Focus had declared Guttenberg reserve chancellor. Spiegel titles: The Fabulous Guttenbergs. A Couple on Its Way to the Chancellory (Figure 6). In tone and font, the title parallels the popular 2001 French modern fairy tale of “The Fabulous World of Amélie” (Figure 7) about a naïve daydreamer. It thus interprets Guttenberg as a daydreaming character in a modern fairy tale. It is the only cover that also depicts Guttenberg’s wife, presenting the couple in front of stairs with a red carpet, suggesting social climbing. Similar to Focus, Spiegel (2010b) editorializes the Guttenbergs knew all about “the art of representative performances” (p. 3). The cover story compares the Guttenbergs to other glamorous couples such as the Clintons, the Blairs, the Obamas, and Sarkozy/Bruni (Demmer, Feldenkirchen, Kurbjuweit, & Pfister, 2010). Spiegel quotes Guttenberg as saying that rumors about him as future chancellor would irritate him and that he can fall from popularity any minute. Still, 70% of Germans are sympathetic to him, as Spiegel describes in its mocking style:

The masses pass him by with longing; their gazes ooze with deep admiration. Only a handful of people dare to address him; many give him an appreciative nod prompting Guttenberg to raise his beer glass. The scene looked like obeisance given to a king. (Demmer et al., 2010, p. 29) OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

The Fabulous Guttenbergs, Spiegel, October 18, 2010.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 7.

The Fabulous World of Amélie, 2001.

2011—Fall and Attempted Return

Conclusion

With 10 cover stories, Spiegel, Focus, and Stern dedicated more covers to Guttenberg than to any other politician between February 2009, when he debuted in national politics, and January 2012, when he retreated from German politics. German news media favored him over other politicians: “Guttenberg was not only the people’s darling, but also the media’s darling” (Hemmelmann, 2011, abstract).

As subscriptions are low and magazines depend on street sales while overall magazine readership is slowly declining, Focus and Stern promoted Guttenberg as a hero on celebratory covers. Stern lived up to its reputation of focusing on celebrities and scandals whenever an opportunity arises. Focus, with its typically positive outlook, continued to promote Guttenberg after the plagiarism revelation. In contrast, Spiegel, sustained by a large subscriber base, used its well-known style of innuendo to mock Guttenberg as a figure out of fairy tales. This is in line with Spiegel’s reputation of showing the “other side of the coin” and ridiculing politicians of the CSU party (Meyn, 2004). These findings confirm and add to Hemmelmann’s (2011) and Jansen’s (2012) content analyses.

As Lule (2001) argued, humans need myths for orientation and motivation. But the hero figure, produced by Focus and Stern, was taken for real and rapidly disintegrated when confronted with the human that Guttenberg is. Guttenberg’s aristocratic background and demeanor as an honest outsider to federal politics provided the material for Focus and Stern to portray him as a European-style hero of noble origin (Eliade, 1975), representing German values (Terkessidis, 2010). The plagiarism contradicted this narrative of a “German hero.” Focus and Stern had to turn him into a tragic or failed hero.

As Guttenberg quickly scapegoated and fired others, Spiegel easily turned him into a scapegoat and demanded his resignation. This is an example of schadenfreude in which someone is “hurt” the same way she/he “had hurt” others before. This schadenfreude found its expression in many jokes (Abendzeitung, 2011) and was handy to fulfill Spiegel’s prophecy of Guttenberg as a false hero. The schadenfreude theme was most apparent in the third Spiegel cover, which gleefully projected the message: “We told you so.”

The Schadenfreude interpretation of Guttenberg’s fall as the final act, however, is just one element in the larger narrative arch of the hero myth that also includes the (potential) return of the hero. Campbell (2008) describes that a hero’s work can also include a return after a “transfiguration,” to share a lesson learned and to start a new life. This second interpretation of the aftermath of the plagiarism scandal was expressed on the Stern and Focus covers about a (desired but for now failed) comeback. The three magazines’ different depictions mirror the tensions among news media and the public between wanting to dismantle someone who had grown too popular too quickly on the one hand and their desire for a hero to shake up politics as usual.

The three magazines interpreted the events surrounding Guttenberg according to their economic, historical, and editorial background. Yet, the narrative arch of the hero myth enthralled all three to produce extraordinary, intense, and long-term coverage of one politician. Using the hero myth lead Focus and Stern to neglect their journalistic duty for objective and factual coverage and Spiegel to indulge in mockery despite the serious investigations it also offered. This leaves the author to wonder if such repeated hyping on one hand, belittlement on the other hand and overall placement of real politics into the world of mythical heroes, emperors, fabulous characters, and fairy tales contributes to a fatigue in the public to participate in politics and elections. Focusing on a person is easier than translating complicated, ambiguous situations into understandable news stories. Yet, oversimplifying stories and turning politicians into larger-than-life heroes does not do justice to the news media’s mandate to convey the complexity and import of political issues to the public.