It is natural for a regime without criticism of its self-image to be a bit of a joy in the independent press. The relationship between politics and the media in Austria was difficult even before Sebastian Kurz. In addition to controlling messages and interfering, turquoise showed real publicity.
That this also had to happen at the state’s expense, some of Curtis’ loyalists brought in this investigation which they and their counsel had to find a few weeks before.
In Kurz’s era, calls to editorial offices—particularly from the Chancellor’s press officer, Gerald Fleischmann—were said to have been uncommon. When it mattered, the counselor himself picked up the cell phone.
Anyway, the available chats show that some people seemingly preferred to receive calls more than others. Kurz’s system was all too easy – and this is also evident from Schmid’s conversations – with a capitalist approach that apparently fell into fertile street ground: Schmid wrote on January 8, 2017 to Johannes Frischmann, “Who pays/loves it,” then the speaker Journalist at the Ministry of Finance, later a spokesman for Sebastian Kurz.
