Tanja May’s emotional marketing of suffering

The crash of the Germanwings plane on March 24, 2015 in the French Alps has brought unspeakable suffering to many families. This stroke of fate was and remains hard to bear for all involved. This often pushes people to their psychological limits, and for many people it raises the question of the meaning of life.

Unfortunately, two professions manipulate this grief for financial gain: journalists and victims’ lawyers. Among them there are special representatives who, even years after the tragic event, attempt to continue profiting from it. In previous articles we have already reported on the “usefulness” of the legal actions of a certain victims’ lawyer.

For the fourth anniversary of the Germanwings crash, Tanja May recently published an article in BUNTE magazine, which, of course, followed a proven formula.

To be clear, this article was never about reporting any latest developments or news, but rather it was only for the purpose of selling emotions, and magazines, to people. Of course, this is Tanja May’s job, and it is typical of what we have come to expect from BUNTE. Truthfulness plays only a minor role, and it does not matter whether anyone’s feelings are offended or if some are exposed to personal risk.

Tanja May has ignored existing legislation by publishing a voyeuristic photo because it helps make her story more graphic, thus encouraging an emotional response. Within her text she repeatedly employs several keywords meant to trigger an emotional reaction in the reader: grief, tears, anger, horror, heart, soul, unimaginable event, conspiracy theories, etc. And a photo of a suffering relative gives a face to the story. The reader learns nothing new from the article. But for one exception: that there is a website for Andreas. It is interesting that Ms May makes note of this in her article, but dismisses the website as nothing more than “dubious expert reports and conspiracy theories”.

In fact, our website’s many articles offer quite interesting facts with supporting evidence and documentation, about which she could have reported. Instead, she perpetuates the established image “carved in stone” and maintains without question the “official crash scenario”, cynically disregarding the burden on our family. Yes, the article has hurt us again, but the wounds do not bleed so much as in previous years.

L.U.

further posts:

„80 percent of the reports on the 27-year-old have been proven to be false“ (1)