BILD (Bild.de)

BILD and BILD.de are fully owned by the Axel Springer Concern – one of the biggest media corporations in Germany. The publishing house issues a broad range of print and electronic media.

The key person of the publishing house is the majority owner Friede Springer, the widow of the company’s founder, Axel Springer, alongside her family. However, she has a share in the company’s capital due to control over a network of holdings, such as Axel Springer Gesellschaft für Publizistik GmbH & Co. (Axel Springer Association for journalism GmbH & Co.). This holding has 90 percent of shares of Axel Springer SE, while Friede Springer has 51.5 percent of shares of Axel Springer Gesellschaft für Publizistik GmbH & Co. as well as 5 percent of shares of Axel Springer SE.

In total, the company operates in about 40 countries. The concern sold its business in Russia to a Russian publisher, Aleksandr Fedotov, in September 2015.

BILD is a leading tabloid in Germany and it always covers political campaigns. The media also has close contacts with political and economic elite. For instance, the tabloid’s majority owner, Friede Springer, is generally considered to be a close friend of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Additionally, the media takes a pro-US and pro-NATO as well as pro-Israeli line. The publishing house’s fundamental principles oblige all staff-members of the Axel Springer publishing house to support "the natural rights of the Israeli people" and "transatlantic alliance with the United States of America."

BILD is considered the most influential print media in Germany and has a daily circulation of about 2.1 million copies. It is also supplemented by the weekly BILD am Sonntag with the circulation of 1 million copies and a Berlin’s local tabloid B.Z. (not to be confused with Berliner Zeitung).

BILD is known for its direct influence in politics to the point of intrusion into private affairs of political elite circles. The media constantly sets in motion campaigns, in which it catches public sentiments and channels them into desired direction. In most cases, these campaigns have an inflammatory element (for example, against "bankrupt Greeks," against unpopular politicians like the former German president Christian Wulff, against foreigners, migrants, refugees, Russia or the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Tiergarten public park).

The Axel Springer publishing house, BILD’s publisher, also issues other dailies such as Die Welt and has close ties with ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE (a German based European Media Corporation specializing in TV broadcasting). The Axel Springer-owned N24 channel produces news content for the major broadcaster of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE.

During the motion campaigns mentioned above, BILD’s editor-in-chief, Kai Diekmann, takes an especially provocative stance and deliberately inflames passions in the social media (particularly, in Twitter).

Das Verbrennen von Druckerzeugnissen hat in Deutschland ja eine gewisse Tradition — zumindest bei bestimmten Leuten. pic.twitter.com/dAJsD74xDg

— Kai Diekmann (@KaiDiekmann) October 2, 2015

Such strategy sometimes faces significant antagonism. Most recently, BILD failed in its campaign called "Wir helfen" ("We help"), in which the media wanted to use the football clubs of the German Bundesliga (the country’s primary football competition) in a free self-advertisement disguised as an action aimed at helping refugees. Ten football clubs eventually refused to take part in the campaign, which was largely perceived as hypocrisy.

Alongside many other staff members of the Axel Springer publishing house, Kai Diekmann is a leading member of the Atlantik-Brücke (‘Atlantic Bridge’) lobby organization that acts behind the scenes promoting the US and NATO interests in political and media sphere via an extensive network.

The editor-in-chief of the bild.de, Julian Reichelt, plays a no less important role. He controls the online activity of the media and consistently advocates the surveillance activity of the NSA.

Reichelt’s statement that Edward Snowden exposing the NSA surveillance activities played right into the hands of international terrorists provoked mass public discontent.

In a Twitter post, Reichelt even called Snowden "a hero of the global terrorism."

BILD is accused of involvement in an assassination attempt against a political activist, Rudi Dutschke, in 1968. The leader of the German student movement was shot by an unskilled worker and a reader of BILD, Josef Bachmann, after the newspaper had led a months-long hate campaign against Rudi Dutschke.

In the late 1970s, whistleblower journalist Günter Wallraff made it into the BILD’s office being undercover and exposed the media’s unsavory working methods that gave no respect to personal rights or journalistic standards. Günter Wallraff published many books concerning this issue, including ‘Der Aufmacher’ (‘Lead Story’).

In April 2015, after the Germanwings 9525 plane crash in the French Alps, there was a wave of public protests, against BILD and even calls to boycott it, as the outlet exposed the 9525 plane’s co-pilot and his family to the public without any respect for personal rights. Many newsvendors then refused to buy BILD further. Because of that, some of them came under pressure from print media suppliers.