The Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) has admitted errors and violations of journalistic standards for three of its television documentaries. Among other things, two contributors have been won in films of the series „close to people“ on a Komparsenvermittlung. „We have no evidence that their stories are not right,“ said the station today in Cologne.
However, editor-in-chief Ellen Ehni made it clear: „This approach is not acceptable for a documentary format such as ‚close up people‘.“ WDR will strengthen its quality assurance at this point. The examination of the films is still ongoing. A protagonist has now confirmed that the character of their relationship is reproduced correctly.
Twitter post as a trigger
The three productions in question are from the same journalist who works as a freelance writer for WDR. The author did not want to comment directly on request of dpa and referred to the WDR press office.
The WDR had become aware of inconsistencies in the films about a user of Twitter. In the movies, the same couple appears, but the man is once called Sven and once Oli. Also, the age information and years do not match in all places. „We very much regret this,“ Ehni continued. The WDR will correct the films in the appropriate places.
