‘Courage to truth’ is the English translation of Compact TV’s tagline. The German far-right YouTube channel counts over 480,000 followers and 3,500 videos. What its ‘About’ section frames as ‘independent reporting’ is an attack on our liberal culture.

Live streams, interviews and even so-called ‘reportages’ – Compact TV got them all. A professional journalistic outlet, one would think. Here are three examples of what their ‘journalism’ looks like:

In a live stream on January 9, 2025, a man and a woman, both in their 60s, stand behind a news desk in a small TV studio. The man is Jürgen Elsässer, chief-editor of the far-right Compact magazine behind Compact TV. The woman is his wife, Stephanie.

Later during the stream, they will broadcast a German live translation of an English interview between Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s nationalist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), and Elon Musk on the billionaire’s self-managed social media platform X.

While excitedly waiting for the event, Jürgen and Stephanie Elsässer are discussing world politics. Then it happens at 25:23: When she tries to put Trump’s interest in taking over Greenland in a historical context, he interrupts her, ‘this is too complicated.’

But isn’t he right? Why would journalists dive deeper if their viewers only seek light entertainment?

In a YouTube Shorts clip on January 29, 2025, a young man is interviewing Christina Baum (AfD) in the federal parliament.

On this day, the centre-right Christian democratic ‘Union’ faction submits a parliamentary proposal for a more restrictive migration and asylum policy. Relying on the support of the far-right AfD, the ‘Union’ faction and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) will approve the ‘five-point plan’.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Left are outraged over what they see as the end of the post-World War 2 political ‘firewall’ of German democratic parties against far-right populists.

‘The question is, of course, if this is actually a day of fate or just being scandalized as such by red-green,’ the interviewer asks Baum. ‘Exactly, the latter is the case,’ she replies.

The interview continues, giving her the opportunity to set AfD’s narratives. Context? None. But why would journalists provide critical context on a party’s narratives if their target audience supports that party anyways?

In a five-minute video from May 5, 2024, categorized as a ‘reportage’, the same young interviewer approaches a group of left-wing protesters on an urban square. They are waiting for the arrival of Maximilian Krah (AfD), a politician who tells teenage boys to admire their fathers and find pride in being German.

‘What do you think of Maximilian Krah,’ he asks a woman with grey hair who is wearing a rainbow necklace. ‘Maximilian Krah – is that a good man?’

She states that she does not want to have to do anything with Compact and despises the medium. The video repeats her statement, adds irritating music, shows an AfD campaign flag. Why not?

So where is the problem?

These videos are typical for Compact TV’s productions. And they have one thing in common: While the channel presents them as journalistic works, the self-proclaimed journalists behind them could not be less bothered with journalistic standards.

Much rather, they are actively pushing the limits of how biased and cynical a media outlet can be while an online audience still views it as ‘journalistic’.

Many viewers are convinced that Compact’s content is what media should look like these days. ‘1.55M views – do the public broadcasters even still achieve this,’ one viewer comments under a live stream. ‘Finally two smart people among themselves – this has not happened in Germany for years,’ another one shares.

Compact TV may have found a niche with growing popularity. But no matter how much it tries to look like a journalistic medium, it will never be anything but a far-right propaganda machine.

Yes, the channel got its own TV studio, talks to politicians and asks people questions, covering politics and society. But journalism is about more than that. It is about the values that are fundamental to our society.

Fake journalism vs. liberal democracy

Compact TV is doing fake journalism, hijacking the profession in advocacy for far-right politicians.

Where fake journalists cut off information to not make it ‘too complicated’, we – as affected citizens – should want to know. Where fake journalists think that they already know the answer, we – as independent minds – should question.

Where fake journalists apply a specific framing, we – as people with morals – should wonder how others may see it differently.

Europe’s far right is gaining traction. And on social media, they do so with unseen professionalism.

Our society’s future

To not end up as a divided society with an illiberal culture, we must act now. And the only way out is committing to a constructive public discourse that is more honest, thorough and open.

Without this effort, we will surrender to those falsely labelling themselves ‘journalists’ to make us unlearn our liberal culture. Once we will have lost understanding of it, the far right will claim to defend it. In their framing, an authoritarian society having lost its values will be the ‘modern occident’ and online propaganda will be ‘independent reporting’.

To prevent our liberal culture’s decline, we should all care about the norms of a liberal society that real journalists promote – norms such as seeing all sides of a story, getting to the bottom of worldly events and looking closer where others might like us to look away. Because these norms are the starting point of any future determined by us, free people, as opposed to illiberal ideologies or elitist groups.

For such a future, we need to be true to ourselves, even if it gets more difficult the more time we spend on social media, dominated by algorithms, big capital and fake journalists. To defend our liberal culture, we have to live it – and that means to reclaim control over what media we consume, guided by our own values.

Text: Johan Gustav Lammers
Featured image: @COMPACTTV, YouTube (screenshot taken by the author)