In view of numerous allegations, Patricia Schlesinger has resigned as RBB director. The Broadcasting Council of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) will hold a special meeting on Monday to discuss how the public broadcaster should proceed. Schlesinger had already withdrawn from the ARD presidency a few days ago, after which there were calls for a resignation as RBB boss. An external investigation into the allegations is currently underway.
Schlesinger has been director of RBB since 2016, which is one of the smaller institutions in the ARD broadcasting network. Her second term began last year and would have lasted five years until 2026. This is how the press commented on her resignation:
"Image": Now it's the turn of the supervisory bodies. They must ask Schlesinger for our wasted fee money back to the euro and cent. If criminal offenses are suspected, the public prosecutor must step in. People like Schlesinger are responsible for the fact that 84 percent of Germans no longer want to pay broadcasting fees. Anyone who allows such rip-offs will destroy ARD and Co.
"Deutschlandfunk": However, a fatal aftertaste remains. The fact that Patricia Schlesinger had the basic salary as artistic director increased by 16 percent from the board of directors may be formally correct. The question of whether a luxury company car is required can also be pointless if the broadcaster has not incurred any unnecessary additional costs as a result. But not only the employees of the RBB are outraged that water is being preached to them while the director is drinking wine. The public broadcasters have to save. But the citizens are also under pressure to save: Many do not know how to pay for heating costs in winter.
"Tagesspiegel": Even greater, if not irreparable, is the damage to the reputation of RBB and the reputation of the entire public broadcaster in Germany. Not only the declared opponents of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandfunk now have access to a huge arsenal of examples of what is wrong with public broadcasters and why this system cannot be saved.
"Spiegel": The Schlesinger cause is a scandal that is reminiscent of the past in public broadcasting, the corrupt sports presenter Jürgen Emig or the long-standing MDR entertainment boss Udo Foht with his dubious financial management. The perpetrators: almost always men who felt unassailable, who saw through committee politics better than their own program. In this respect, Schlesinger's departure is a disappointment in many respects.
"Weser-Kurier": Even if part of the suspicion of waste, favoritism and nepotism prove to be inflated, even if Schlesinger should have moved in a gray area - what has spread through their company car with chauffeur and invitations to eat is not only confirmed by them harshest critic of public service broadcasting. It must arouse the greatest distrust in the most loyal listeners, viewers and good fee payers. If you take your (forced) customers seriously, there can only be one answer: a reform that deserves its name, initiated by ARD and ZDF themselves.
"World": Schlesinger did not justify it with misconduct that she had to admit to herself: the overpriced service Audi with massage seats at a list price of 145,000 euros, for example, which she afforded, the dinners in her private apartment at the expense of the fee payer or the questionable consulting contracts, about which she recently had to give information to the Berlin state parliament. But with the fact that the "personal allegations and defamation" against her had "reached a level that makes it personally impossible for me to continue to hold office". It's obvious: someone has lost measure and center - but self-criticism? none.
