The “logo!” broadcast on March 19th discussed the end of Ramadan and the declining number of members of Christian churches in Germany.

Sugar festival and Ramadan right in front of the medieval church

During the Ramadan post showed real people breaking their fast and took up topics with positive connotations such as family celebrations, sweets and henna traditions Christianity treated using an explanatory video with medieval depictions. It spoke of the church’s lust for power, the sale of indulgences and “horrible crimes against children.” However, critical aspects of Islam remained unmentioned in the article.

The former ZDF capital city correspondent Thorsten Alsleben then submitted a formal program complaint to the ZDF television council, as he himself wrote on X. He complained that the Islam article had not said a critical word about gender segregation during prayer or the wearing of headscarves. The Catholic news agency CNA first drew attention to the issue.

ZDF regrets the broadcast back to back

When asked, ZDF explained that both contributions were “planned independently and without any intention of comparing content.” We regret the impression created. The incident was discussed and processed internally in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future. It was only recently that I had to ZDF admits errors in the use of AI images.