Playing The Media Game

For years, Germany's leaders could practically do whatever they wanted behind closed doors and didn't have to fear reading about it in the country's tabloids the next morning.

But now, the decades of an unspoken pact in which journalists treated politicians' private lives with discretion appear to be nearing an end.

The prominent victim of this development is none other than Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who usually relishes public attention. He is furious after several German newspapers reprinted a story from Britain's Mail on Sunday which claimed that Schröder's fourth marriage is in trouble.

The Chancellor's lawyers have now warned the media of legal action against anyone who reprinted these allegations.

The personalization of politics

In the most recent issue of the weekly news magazine Spiegel, Schröder complains of the media's lacking respect for privacy. But could he be bearing the brunt of a trend he himself supported?

Schröder, who calls himself the "media chancellor", is a prime example of a person being used to make politics. The media interest in politicians' private lives is a result of this personalization of politics, says Dr. Ralph Weiss of the Hans-Bredow-Institut for Media Research in Hamburg.

"Politicians are increasingly appearing on television talk shows and using this media space, where it's not about their politics, but about their person," he told DW-WORLD in an interview. "Politicians like this. They can sell themselves well, without having to answer hard-hitting questions."

Part of the territory

Weiss explains that this development is based on the general trend of public intimacy. "People are increasingly divulging their personal lives in the media," he says. The success of reality television, such as Big Brother or court TV, showed this.

Politicians have used this trend of revealing their "personal side" as a political strategy. "But the risk of this is that once you start, you can't steer where it's going to go," says Weiss. "They're playing a media game, which they can't control."

According to the German Journalists Association DJV, Schröder shouldn't be surprised that media are exploiting a system which he himself created.

DJV's chairman Rolf Lautenbach told German radio Deutschlandfunk that other standards applied in this case. When a leader all but fixes the party platform to his person, he shouldn't wonder that journalists are more interested in this person than usual, Lautenbach said.

He added that Schröder's attempts to legally hinder such reports were "wrong". The Chancellor had already in part made himself "ridiculous" when he last year sued a press agency for suggesting that he dyed his hair.