A report on the MDR program “Umschau” will “reveal the corona vaccination scandal”, lateral thinkers recently announced before its broadcast in the name of the anti-Semite Sucharit Bhakdi. Things happened differently: the content of the article about the alleged contamination of the Biontech vaccine was quickly dismantled by experts. Analyzes were not understandable, samples appeared to be expired, and an infographic was incorrect.
Initially, the broadcaster defended the contribution: a spokeswoman explained that it should not have been discussed that a microbiologist presented as an independent researcher spoke alongside charlatans at anti-vaccination events.
The MDR then “temporarily” took the report off the air because the broadcaster had “received numerous questions and tips” that it wanted to “carefully examine and classify,” as the spokeswoman said. The exam results will be transparent. According to the spokeswoman, he kept the authors of the current article secret – at their request: she simply stated that a collective of authors had created it.
Things would be different again: on Thursday, the MDR only announced in general terms that its “journalistic due diligence criteria” had not been met and that the article had therefore been unpublished. The broadcaster declined to say which criteria were violated and which content was incorrect. This also remains open on a website titled “Correction” where, following a request from this newspaper, the broadcaster simply informs its viewers that, based on a careful internal examination, it is clear that due diligence criteria have not been met.
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The MDR had already reported several times on unreliable studies about alleged problems with Covid vaccines and had not made the conflicts of interest of the protagonists transparent.