AI Scandal at ZDF Exposes German Public Media’s US Bias

An AI video in a ZDF news programme was no accident but deliberately inserted. Internal leaks now reveal a fundamental debate within public broadcasting – about media narratives, Trump and Germany’s view of America.

Dunja Hayali in the ZDF studio in Mainz. She is one of the network’s most prominent news anchors and a central figure in the debate over the broadcaster’s coverage of the United States. Photo: Hannes P Albert/APA-Images/dpa

On 15 February, the ZDF ‘heute journal’ broadcast a report on operations by the US deportation agency ICE under President Donald Trump. The segment was titled ‘Children in fear of ICE’. The film showed dramatic scenes of raids in residential areas, families in tears and an atmosphere of menace. An AI-generated video was inserted into the piece. In addition, older footage was used out of context. Two days later, ZDF corrected the report. The head of the New York studio, Nicola Albrecht, was removed from her post. At first, the broadcaster had cited ‘technical reasons’.

Clarity emerged only after internal recordings of a staff meeting attended by 1,100 employees, according to the broadcaster’s own figures. The recordings were published by the portal Nius, a news site that presents itself as an alternative to the media mainstream and regularly reports critically on public broadcasting. Speaking at the meeting, editor-in-chief Bettina Schausten stated that the AI scene had been ‘knowingly inserted’. There had been ‘no intention’ to deceive – ‘but it was done knowingly’. Reality must not be illustrated by AI ‘as it might be’.

ZDF forms part of Germany’s public broadcasting system, which is funded through a mandatory licence fee. Critics therefore pointedly refer to it as ‘state television’, since the broadcasters are organised by interstate treaty, enjoy legally guaranteed revenues and fulfil a public-service remit. It is precisely that claim – journalistic diligence, balance and independence – that makes the current episode so sensitive.

‘Is this our Relotius moment?’

During the internal discussion, a name was mentioned that remains synonymous in German newsrooms with systemic failure: Claas Relotius. The former reporter for the news magazine Der Spiegel fabricated reports over many years, invented individuals and constructed quotations. The fraud was exposed in 2018. The scandal shook not just a single publication but the self-image of an entire industry. The ‘Relotius moment’ has since stood for a constellation in which not only an author deceives, but an editorial environment believes stories because they fit its own worldview.

That was the point raised by a ZDF employee who asked: ‘Is this perhaps a Relotius moment for ZDF?’ He spoke of a ‘total sharpening towards the narrative’ that had been cultivated for years. Even the title ‘Children in fear of ICE’ had given him a ‘sense of unease’. The piece reduced a complex migration-policy issue to ‘that one extreme story of innocent poor immigrant children in fear of the evil Trump’. His broader question was: ‘Are we still capable of looking across the entire political spectrum without prejudice, or do we refrain from everything so as not to appear to give the wrong side any credit?’ He even referred to ‘worldview-affirmation broadcasts’.

Schausten rejected the comparison with Relotius. Relotius had ‘deceived and invented reality’. That was not the case here. Nevertheless, she acknowledged communicative mistakes: ‘We cannot allow ourselves to do this again’, and ‘we did not tell people the truth’.

https://twitter.com/jreichelt/status/2023713657880715694

Hayali, Theveßen and the American Framing

At the centre of the affair are two prominent faces of the broadcaster: Dunja Hayali and Elmar Theveßen. Both have shaped coverage of the United States for years and both stand for a distinctly critical assessment of the Trump era.

Elmar Theveßen spoke at the staff meeting himself. ‘Not a single word in Nicola’s reports was wrong,’ he said. They had ‘depicted reality’ and had ‘really nothing to reproach ourselves for’. Children were ‘rounded up during ICE operations in residential areas, in restaurants, in schools and in the street’. The result was ‘fear among people in those cities’. It was ‘a pity’ if ‘the muttering of Nius and others is adopted here’.

This defence fits into a longer series of sharply accentuated assessments of Trump’s policies. During his first term, Theveßen repeatedly described the situation in the United States as ‘deeply divided’ and spoke of ‘an attack on the institutions of democracy’. After the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021, he characterised the events as a ‘historic breach of taboo’ and stressed that Trump had ‘led the country into a deep crisis’. Such commentaries are journalistically permissible – yet they clearly mark a normative stance.

Elmar Theveßen, head of the ZDF Washington bureau, has shaped the German broadcaster’s coverage of U.S. politics for years. Photo: ZDF/Max Sonnenschein

Dunja Hayali has likewise adopted pointed positions in the past. In interviews and as a presenter, she repeatedly criticised Trump’s rhetoric as ‘highly dangerous’ and spoke of a ‘coarsening of political discourse’. On social media, she positioned herself clearly against Trump’s travel bans and migration policies. Following racist incidents in the United States, she referred on several occasions to a ‘poisoned atmosphere’ for which she held the political leadership in Washington partly responsible.

Critics see in this not isolated judgements but a persistent negative framing. That was precisely the thrust of the internal intervention: ‘We only ever frame Trump in negative terms. Who would still dare to say anything positive about the man?’ Schausten partially defended Hayali. The presenter had not known that AI material was included in the report. She had assumed a shortened version. At the same time, Schausten added that it would have been ‘nice’ if she had watched the report again. ‘Perhaps she might even have noticed the watermark.’

Narrative, Perception and Responsibility

The debate thus touches on a fundamental question: where does clear political assessment end and where does editorial tunnel vision begin? If journalistic actors pursue a clearly negative line of interpretation over many years, sensitivity towards embellishments that reinforce that image may diminish. The broader significance becomes clearer in the light of a recent survey according to which many Germans now view the United States as the second-greatest threat to world peace – directly after Russia. At the same time, the United States remains Europe’s military guarantor and Germany’s most important ally. Such a public mood does not arise solely from decisions in Washington. It is also shaped by media framing.

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The AI scandal is therefore more than an editorial misjudgement. It is a test for a system financed by the public and committed to balanced, fact-based reporting. When the term ‘worldview-affirmation broadcasts’ is used within that system, it is not external polemic but internal self-diagnosis. Whether this episode ends as an isolated mishap or marks a turning point in the history of public broadcasting remains to be seen. One thing, however, is clear: how Germany views America is not decided only in Washington. It is decided in Mainz as well – and in the willingness to scrutinise one’s own narrative time and again.