Cultivated Shallow Talk of General Helplessness

I. Sunday, Twelve O’Clock

Since 1952, Sunday noon on German television has belonged to journalists. Werner Höfer hosted the “Internationaler Frühschoppen” (International Morning Pint): six journalists from five countries, with wine on the table and real argument. In 1987 Höfer had to go when it became known that in 1943 he had welcomed in print the execution of a pianist. In December 1987 the “Presseclub” took its place. It has remained to this day; only the five countries have disappeared. Today mostly German journalists discuss Germany.

On 11 October 2026 the question was: “Ground down between the extremes – can the centre still govern?” Anna Planken moderated; at the table sat Mona Jaeger of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Eva Quadbeck of the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, Marcus Engert of the investigative team of the regional broadcaster MDR, and Christian Tretbar, editor-in-chief of the Tagesspiegel. Four clever people, three of them from Berlin capital-city bureaus. On the same day the CDU leadership met, with a former federal president and a polling institute as guests.

The announcement of the programme asked the right questions: What can the coalition still achieve? Which reforms can it push forward? What holds the coalition partners together? The panel must be measured against these questions.

II. What the Panel Did Well

Unsparing does not mean unfair. There were strong moments. Marcus Engert calculated that more Christian Democratic members of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament deny having voted for the AfD candidate for parliamentary president than is arithmetically possible. “At the moment Union deputies are lying to us on an open stage. That is mathematics.” That is journalism: a finding one can check.

Mona Jaeger said right at the start that the coalition was itself to blame for its upheavals; there was “no problem of insight”. Engert recalled that from 2044 the debts of the special infrastructure fund must be repaid and that politics has so far said nothing to the people who will pay. And when a caller claimed the reforms hit only the little people, Eva Quadbeck explained factually what the packages actually contain. Those were the best minutes of the programme.

III. The Diagnosis of Others

But the keynote was a different one. The CDU invites a former president and a polling institute, a panellist said; that shows “the greatest possible helplessness a party can have”. That is an apt diagnosis. But it applies not only to the CDU.

Listen to the panel itself. “None of us knows.” “I lack the imagination.” “It is hardly conceivable how that should work.” “I lack the fantasy.” “No great explanation comes to my mind.” Each of these sentences is honest, and none is a reproach on its own. Together they paint the picture of a panel that certifies helplessness in others and demonstrates it itself. That is what we mean by cultivated shallow talk of general helplessness: good manners, clever observations, and at the end nobody knows what should be done.

IV. The Horse Race

Where ideas are missing, persons fill the space. Is Merz still chancellor, or only “on probation”? Why could Wüst and Söder not agree? Did Pistorius stand on the drinks crate at the vigil on Bebelplatz authentically or out of calculation? And towards the end the viewer’s question about a successor, “good or realistic”, and the answer: Wüst would not resist if pushed, Söder even sooner.

This is horse-race journalism: who is ahead, who is falling back, who might overtake? It is entertaining, and it is comfortable. For one can talk about horses without talking about the course. What is in the pension package, what the tax reform changes, why a state government could block asylum procedures and what would happen then, appeared only at the margins, mostly when a caller asked.

V. The Narrative as a Substitute

One word kept coming up: narrative. Merz lacks a narrative, the government needs a narrative, the AfD and the Left have one. To the question of which narrative could bring the centre back, none came. The announced question of which reforms the coalition can still push forward remained almost untouched. One panellist at least said that the reform package itself is one; one need only add that it will be expensive and painful.

The demand for a “narrative” is comfortable, because it hands the content back to politics and leaves the form with the commentator. It assumes the problem is the packaging. But perhaps the problem is the content: that nobody, at the table, in the coalition or in the studio, wants to say who should pay for what.

VI. The Smartest Sentences Came by Telephone

After 41 minutes the Presseclub moved to Phoenix and WDR 5 and let viewers call in. A caller from Gelsenkirchen said in three sentences what the panel had circled for three quarters of an hour: as long as people believe that only those at the bottom are made to give, the government can turn in circles as much as it likes.

A caller from Iserlohn proposed dissolving the coalition and letting a minority government fight for majorities in parliament. Mona Jaeger answered with a reasonable argument: in the end the AfD would tolerate the government. But her conclusion was: “That is not how German parliamentarism works, and it simply won’t happen.” Someone on the panel objected that one would eventually not be able to avoid it. For a moment a real alternative lay on the table. Then it was on to the next caller.

And a caller from Friedrichshafen supplied the image of the day. Whoever stands in the middle of a system of axes stands at the zero point, that is, nowhere. Perhaps the CDU should think fundamentally about this position. A sentence that explains more than many an analysis: the centre is not a programme but a place where one stays.

VII. Why the Shallow Talk Stays Cultivated

Nobody at the table is stupid or dishonest. The shallow talk arises from the construction, not from the persons. First, the guests come from the same milieu, Berlin capital-city journalism. They know the same background briefings and the same rumours. What our paper “Truth Exists Only Between Two” calls the consensus corridor is here a studio table.

Second, diagnosis pays and proposals do not. Whoever describes what is going wrong is always right. Whoever makes a proposal can be wrong, and that sticks. We described the same pattern in politics in “Heart Disease. And Nobody Operates.” It also applies to those who talk about politics.

Third, there is no follow-up. Nobody checks after six months which assessment of the Presseclub came true. Without measurement there is no control loop, and without a control loop the system learns nothing. It cultivates itself.

VIII. Fog and Cotton Wool

In our essay on the fog machine we described how conspiracy channels confuse with too many versions of reality until viewers become indifferent. The Presseclub is the opposite, and it leads to the same place.

The fog machine confuses; the shallow talk soothes. One offers too many answers, the other none. Whoever hears every Sunday that it is difficult, that one cannot know, and that imagination is lacking, learns above all one thing: that it is difficult. Fog and cotton wool produce the same product, a shrug.

IX. What a Presseclub Could Be

The format could be changed with little effort. Each guest brings a concrete, checkable proposal at the end, not just an assessment. Six months later there is a follow-up: what was said, what came true, who was wrong? At least one seat at the table goes to someone who does not work in Berlin and does not live from commenting, a mayor, a master craftsman, a head teacher. And the callers come not after the credits but into the programme.

The Frühschoppen had wine and argument. The Presseclub has good manners and helplessness. What is missing is the courage to commit oneself.

A panel that certifies helplessness in others should itself go home with a proposal. Otherwise it is not the diagnosis but a symptom.