Journalist who wrote book praising Putin sacked by German ‘Bild’ daily

 

Dec 6, 2023. Posted by  Balkan Periscope - Hellas

 One of the chief reporters of the German daily Bild, Jürgen Helfricht, has been fired for co-authoring a pro-Kremlin publication. The book, titled “Learning to Love Russia,” was published without the knowledge of his editors and is “one big tribute to Vladimir Putin,” German media reported.

 

The editors of the Bild daily stated that they would never agree to publish praises of Putin. “We assessed that Jürgen Helfricht did not live up to his professionalism by affirming a message idealizing Russia. Therefore, he was immediately suspended from his duties,” the statement said.

The text, co-authored by a former chief reporter of the Dresden edition of the Bild daily, was published in German and Russian. The foreword was written by Vladimir Putin, and former Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky is also one of the co-authors. Russian politicians emphasize at the outset that the publication is intended to be “an antidote to the long-standing lies of Western propaganda.”

The weekly Der Spiegel reminds us that the book “Learning to Love Russia” was written on the initiative of the artistic director of the Semper Opera Ball, Hans-Joachim Frey, who “publishes the Russian president’s outbursts without commentary and does not look any farther than is required by Kremlin propaganda’s dictate.”

This is another scandal involving a pro-Putin journalist in a leading German media outlet. Hubert Seipel had spent years producing reports and interviews sympathetic to the Kremlin, receiving lavish salaries from the Russian government for doing so.

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