Blue country Austria has voted
By Martina Thiele | In an interview with Nina Horaczek, chief reporter at the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter, the University of Tübingen’s media scholar Martina Thiele discusses the role of media in the National Council election campaign and the possible consequences of the election result for press freedom in Austria. Independent journalism does not have it easy in a country that, as a small European state, struggles with the consequences of a highly concentrated media market. Quite a few people abroad think of political scandals when they hear Austria, involving media and politics – whether it be the Waldheim affair around war crimes during Nazi times or the recent Ibiza scandal surrounding corrupt party politics and biased reporting, leading to the collapse of the governing coalition and early elections in 2019.