NSFW

This week's song is Junimond from Ton Steine Scherben/Rio Reiser.

The music was written by the band's keyboarder Martin Paul who passed away a week ago (see more on this below). The lyrics and performance are from Rio Reiser whose death marked its 30th anniversary last week.

The song was covered many, many times, for examply by Die Prinzen

Herbert Grönemeyer (with others)

Lisa Bassenge

Max Giesinger (TV Noir, very nice format!)

Mathias Kellner (Bavarian version :-) )

All the covers are nice, but I still like the original most.

Retrospect

LLP

The Legal Literacy Project did an episode on fundamental rights - in particular the right to privacy - on Thursday evening. Florian from the department was the interviewee, I did the technical support.

Social Media Ban for the Youth

The media minister's draft law aiming to block social media for people under 14 is currently under review. Approximately 100 opinions have been handed in so far, many of them from private individuals.

I was interviewed on the matter for Der Standard. The moment I am finishing this weekly the text is not yet published, but will - hopefully - be online soon.

Prospect

Monroe E. Price Media Law Moot Court Competition

Moot Courts are a very interesting teaching format as the allow students to develop legal skills critically important to the job - how to develop arguments, how to react on counterarguments, how to speak convincingly and to meet colleagues from all over the world. This is why I very much support two moot courts (one on media law, one on GDPR).

Both of the will have info sessions soon.

The Media Law Moot Court organises an online info session on September 1st.

The competition brings together students from around the world to argue complex cases at the intersection of media law, human rights, and the digital environment. Participants develop advanced research, writing, and advocacy skills while competing internationally, including at the European Rounds in Paris and the International Rounds in Oxford .

The GDPR Moot Court follows on September 7th.

Link for registration: https://lnkd.in/dMAuGEV9
DPMC Rulebook 2026: https://lnkd.in/dwAui-uq
DPMC Frequently Asked Questions: https://lnkd.in/d-ewMzC7

This is an excellent opportunity to work on GDPR in practice, in an international environment and with an outstandingly skilled jury!

Look and Feel

Musik ist eine Waffe (Music is a Weapon)

Last week's mention of Rio Reiser brought me to a long and very nice podcast about Ton Steine Scherben: Musik ist eine Waffe: 8 episodes + 2 extras on the 70ies and 80ies with interview partners such as Danger Dan, Blixa Bargeld, Herbert Grönemeyer, Claudia Roth bring lots of information and atmosphere.

Musik ist eine Waffe – Die Geschichte von Ton Steine Scherben

Als Ton Steine Scherben sich 1970 gründen, gehören sie zu den ersten, die Rockmusik mit deutschen Texten machen – ohne, dass es peinlich oder nachgemacht klingt. Doch die Scherben sind mehr als nur eine Band: Sie versuchen das, was sie singen, auch zu leben. Philip Meinhold (“Wer hat Burak erschossen?”, “Mein Freund Floh”) erzählt die Geschichte der vielleicht wichtigsten deutschen Band von ihren Anfängen als Politrockband über die Solo-Karriere ihres Sängers Rio Reiser bis zu ihrer Bedeutung heute. Erstmals zu hören sind dabei viele Töne eines 60-stündigen Gespräch Rio Reisers, das er 1993 für seine Autobiographie geführt hat.

radioeins

I was, in particular, intrigued by the role the band and Reiser played in the decay of the late GDR. It's so sad that he Reiser died so young from esophageal varices, probably related to alcohol abuse, 30 years ago, on August 20th 1996. The band's guitarist and co-genious R.P S. Lanrue who is interviewed quiet extensively in the podcast, died 2024, the keyboarder Martin Paul just a few days ago, on August 17th 2026 - both from cancer. Fuck Cancer.

Here's an obituary from Claudia Roth.

Claudia Roth über Rio Reiser und Martin Paul: „Es war Familie“

30 Jahre nach Rio Reisers Tod ist auch Martin Paul gestorben. Claudia Roth erinnert sich an zwei enge Freunde, ein gemeinsames Leben und die Geschichte hinter „Junimond“.

SWR

The podcast is a very nice way to remember them and to understand why their music is important for many of my but also for some of a younger generation.

Spotify has a playlist with all Ton Steine Scherben and Rio Reiser songs - 292! I am currently working myself through this.

Sachsen-Anhalt

While I am trying to get some kind of an overview on what's happening in Sachsen-Anhalt and what the state election on September 6th might bring, I come across content that is relevant to many of "my" topics and might therefore be of interest to some of you:

The Podcast "{Ungescriptet} by Ben" has a 4 hours (!) interview with Ulrich Siegmund - the AfD candidate - with 5.4 Million YiuTube-visits after 10 days (!).

(He also has an interview with Björn Höcke - 4 1/2 hours, 6.5 Million visits after 3 months!).

The Siegmund interview (I didn't listen to the one with Höcke but I would presume it's similar) is strange - and interesting! - as it's the opposite of what one would expect in such a case: no critical questions, no factual corrections, no counterpositions, but instead of this hours of "feel good"-content allowing Siegmund to position himself as a friendly, mainstream guy. The video is technically (sound, light etc.) so well done that it outcompetes many "professional" media creations leaving an impression that - finally - someone lets the candidate "just speak" and "be as he is".

Die Neuen Zwanziger-Salon (Paywall, worth the money) has an excellent one hour analysis of this conversation and its lack of distance - and its rhetoric power and why professionalism is important in journalism. Wolfgang M. Schmitt und Stefan Schulz make the interesting argument that far right parties have a communicative double strategy: on the one hand to express all the fear, hate and anger aggressively, on the other to show how neat and friendly and nice they are.

A very good example on how to deal with this double strategy in professional journalism is a recent episode of Amann Unframed with Hans-Thomas Tillschneider - another extremist far right politician in Sachen Anhalt.

The host, Melanie Amann, is well prepared and shows masterfully the lack of substance in Tillschneider's argumentation. Different from the Ungeskriptet-talk, this one ends in an éclat with the guest suddenly leaving the interview under protest which is, probably, not a convinding end - not even for his voters and supporters. However, this interview has 182.000 views in the moment I am writing this, so, roughly 3 % of Ungeskriptet.

I am really missing the (legal) analysis of what this means for media support, platform liability, freedom of expression and so on.

Inside Austria deals somehow with the topic as well and has an episode comparing the Austrian situation with FPÖ in five local governments with the German.

Interventional Radiology

Die Dunkelkammer has a very interesting interview with the head of the medical unit of interentional cardiology, Luca de Paoli, in Klagenfurt: The whole team quit the job a few weeks ago.

This is a very good direct report on structural problems in patient care in Carinthia, but also on developments and growth in radiology that was, ironically, identified as the field in medicine that would disappear first due to AI ten years ago. The truth is the opposite - the domain has become more diversified, more demanding and more useful since then, specialists are urgently searched. Horst Bischof made a joke on this misconception in his keynote in Strobl at UNIVIE's summer discourse earlier in August.

Hannah from the department wrote a blogpost about day 3 of the summer discourse.

The Rest is Politics

The podcast has an interesting episode on the trade war started by the USA against Canada and which opportunities this generates for the EU and UK.

Have a wonderful week and take care of yourself!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)