Did a senior CDU leader just endorse censoring the media?
Dear Reader,
Did one of the most senior figures in the CDU just call for news outlets that produce sensationalist content to be censored or banned? That is the explosive question at the centre of a debate on freedom of speech that has been simmering in Germany this month.
Daniel Günther, the minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein, described new media outlets that have emerged in the digital age as “enemies of democracy” that were “carrying out political agitation, not journalism”. If politicians failed to “stand up” to such outlets, German democracy would be “unrecognisable” in ten years’ time, he said during an appearance on the country’s most popular evening talk show.
The host asked whether he was advocating “regulation, censorship or, if necessary, bans”. Günther replied: “Yes.”
He went on to name names, singling out the website NIUS — often described as a German equivalent of Breitbart or GB News — which has gained popularity (and notoriety) for its polemical reporting on issues such as migrant crime and gender policy. Outlets like NIUS were sensationalising every tiny dispute inside the government and thus helping the AfD to become more popular, he complained.
The reaction on the political right was swift. Critics pointed out that Article 5 of the German constitution explicitly prohibits press censorship. The tabloid Bild demanded that Günther apologise or resign. The Association of German Journalists said it was “shocked”.
NIUS, gleeful at the attention, ran banners comparing Günther to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and warned that Germany was once again on the verge of sliding into totalitarianism. The right-wing outlet, founded three years ago, announced legal action, arguing that Günther had abused his position as a public official by labelling it an enemy of democracy.
For his part, Günther immediately insisted that it had all been a misunderstanding. His “yes”, he said, referred to a separate proposal to ban social media use for under-16s — a topic that had been discussed earlier in the programme and which he picked up on again immediately afterwards.
The broadsheet press then threw their weight behind Günther, claiming that the tabloids had deliberately misconstrued his remarks for the purpose of generating outrage. Describing the controversy as “fake news”, Der Spiegel argued that the scandal itself illustrated the degraded state of modern journalism that Günther had been warning about.
Why does this matter?
Günther is not a marginal figure. One of Germany’s longest-serving state leaders, he remains the most influential representative of the CDU’s Merkelian wing. Whenever the party has searched for new leadership in recent years, his name has featured prominently in the background.
For domestic critics, his remarks reveal a familiar instinct among parts of the German political elite: when confronted with voices that undermine their authority, the reflex is to talk about bans and prohibitions. This is particularly striking given that Günther has long supported banning the AfD — a proposal for dealing with right-wing populism that is largely unique to the German debate.
The episode also fits into a broader pattern. In recent years, government officials have shown a willingness to test the boundaries of press freedom when dealing with outlets they consider extremist or dangerous.
Under the previous government, led by Olaf Scholz, authorities attempted to shut down Compact, a magazine even further to the right than NIUS. A highly controversial police raid on its offices in the summer of 2024 was later rebuked by the courts, which stressed that “the constitution guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press even to the enemies of freedom”.
Similarly troubling questions were raised by the prolonged pre-trial detention of Michael Ballweg, a leading figure in the anti-lockdown movement, on tax-fraud charges that ultimately failed to stick.
In these cases, the courts have acted as a brake on executive overreach. Germany’s constitution, written in response to the country’s totalitarian past, has so far proven resilient. There is no realistic prospect of a government simply banning an inconvenient media outlet.
NIUS itself has repeatedly won legal battles against German authorities over attempts to deny it access to press events or to force the redaction of parts of its reporting. However irritating the outlet may be to those in power, the judiciary has been consistent in defending its rights.
What comes next?
One overlooked part of Günther’s television appearance was his call for US social media companies to be taxed, with the proceeds redistributed to “traditional media outlets”. This proposal is almost as problematic as his remarks about banning certain platforms.
If the state were to tax social media firms and funnel the money to domestic newspapers, it would become a major funder of private media. That would create powerful incentives for political interference — precisely why public broadcasters are financed through licence fees rather than general taxation.
None of this is to say that NIUS represents high-quality journalism. Much of its output relies on sensationalist narratives about shadowy left-wing networks manipulating public opinion. Yet the claim that it is little more than a disinformation outlet does not withstand close scrutiny. The clearest examples of false reporting appear to involve exaggerated crime statistics and fabricated quotes — hardly unheard of in the tabloid end of the media spectrum.
If that is enough to qualify a publication as an enemy of democracy that must be shut down, then a good portion of Fleet Street — the historic heart of Britain’s rambunctious press — would be out of a job.
On the other hand, the broadsheet press’s insistence that there was nothing remotely controversial about Günther’s comments underscores why public trust in journalism is in decline.
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Well written and thought provoking piece. There were similar arguments made about GB news for a while but that seems to have stopped -possibly due to the viewing figures!