A debate has erupted in Kosovo about whether Prime Minister Kurti made a mistake by admitting that the US ambassador in Kosovo at a certain time knew more about the situation in the north of the country than the government.
albanianpost.com
albanianpost.com
This debate will be forgotten tomorrow (and rightly so), but while it is not, I´d like to add some observations on what is considered irrelevant or important in different public spheres. Because the differences can be huge.
Kosovo is of course important for people living there. But the interest of the German public in Kosovos daily politics for most people is zero. The interview with Mr. Kurti did not even make it in the print edition, and the online version did not hit the news anywhere in 🇩🇪.
This is not unique to Kosovo or this specific interview. Interviews with politicians from the Balkans might be read by a general readership in 🇩🇪, but usually without any deeper interest. FAZ is one of the few German media which still continously cover the region. Most do not.
I personally was surprised that Mr. Kurti admitted he knew less about a certain development in his own country than the US ambassador, as politicians usually would rather lie than frankly say they do (or did not) know something.
I was not only surprised that he said it, but also that his team left it just the way he said it in the transcript of our conversation. As I had to shorten our conversation (we spoke for an hour) I had sent Kurtis team the interview for authorization prior to publication.
Why authorization? All we talked about was very interesting for me as someone who follows Kosovo for more than 20 years, but way too complicated or nitty-gritty for a general audience and FAZ readership. So I shortened it, and shorting always entails the danger of losing nuances.
So I shortened the interview heavily and sent in the parts I wanted to use for authorization. I always do that when I shorten interviews. I want to make sure the interviewee is ok with my cuts and does not consider his words io be taken out of context.
For Twitter, the detail about the ambassador is interesting. For a general audience in Germany, it is not. It will arouse as much interest as a report about, say, a power struggle in the Union of Transnistrian Railway workers or the opening of a new shopping mall in Banjul.
I will, however, pick up this detail in my reporting at a later stage, just as I will use other parts I had to cut out now, as the debate itself says a lot about politics in Kosovo. So it is good material to explain elements of the power struggle and the role of media in it.
But probably the next time 🇽🇰 will hit the news in 🇩🇪 is only on the day when it officially bids for EU membership. This will create some interest, as Kosovo (unjustifiably) has a very bad image in Germany, especially with those who do not know it, i.e with the huge majority.
shortening, that is.
جاري تحميل الاقتراحات...