Editing Bild (section)

===Editorial leanings===
{{Conservatism in Germany|Media}}
[[File:Editorial office of Bild newspaper, West Berlin, 1977.jpg|thumb|right|Editors work on producing an issue of ''Bild,'' 1977 in [[West Berlin]]. Previous front pages are affixed to the wall behind them.]]
From the outset, the editorial drift was conservative and nationalist.<ref name=guardian-20200717/> The [[German Democratic Republic|GDR]] was referred to as the [[Soviet Occupation Zone]] (German: ''Sowjetische Besatzungszone'' or ''SBZ''). The usage continued well into the 1980s, when ''Bild'' began to use the GDR's official name cautiously, putting it in quotation marks. ''Bild'' (along with fellow Springer tabloid ''[[B.Z. (newspaper)|B.Z.]]'') heavily influenced public opinion against the [[German student movement]] and [[left-wing terrorism]] in the years following 1966, and was blamed by some for the climate that contributed to the assassination attempt on activist [[Rudi Dutschke]] in 1968—a popular catchphrase in left-wing circles sympathetic to student radicalism was "Bild hat mitgeschossen!" ("Bild shot at him too!").<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/medienhetzer-und-politgammler.724.de.html?dram:article_id=99713|title=Medienhetzer und Politgammler: Springer und die 68er|publisher=[[Deutschlandfunk]]|language=de|date=18 January 2010|last=Meyer|first=Michael|access-date=24 March 2020}}</ref>

In 1977 investigative journalist [[Günter Wallraff]] worked for four months as an editor for the ''Bild'' tabloid in [[Hanover]],<ref name=guardian-20200717/> giving himself the [[pseudonym]] of "Hans Esser". In his books ''Der Aufmacher'' ("Lead Story") and ''Zeugen der Anklage'' ("Witnesses for the Prosecution") he portrays his experiences on the editorial staff of the paper and the journalism which he encountered there. The staff commonly displayed contempt for humanity, a lack of respect for the privacy of ordinary people and widespread conduct of unethical research and editing techniques. Wallraff's investigations were also the basis for the 1990 film ''[[The Man Inside (1990 film)|The Man Inside]]''.

After the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]] and the end of the [[Cold War]] in Europe, ''Bild'' focused on celebrity stories and became less political.<ref name=guardian-20200717>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/bild-zeitung-tabloid-julian-reichelt-angela-merkel-germany |title=Bild, Merkel and the culture wars: the inside story of Germany's biggest tabloid |last=Meaney |first=Thomas |newspaper=The Guardian |date=17 July 2020 |access-date=17 July 2020}}</ref> Despite its general support for Germany's conservative parties and especially former chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]], its rhetoric, still populist in tone, is less fierce than it was thirty years ago.<ref name="guardian-20200717" /> Its traditionally less conservative Sunday paper ''[[Bild am Sonntag]]'' even supported [[Gerhard Schröder]], a [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrat]], in his bid for chancellor in 1998.

In 2004, ''Bild'' started to cooperate with fast-food giant McDonald's to sell the tabloid at its 1,000 fast-food restaurants in Germany. The cooperation still goes on, often enough by advertising the restaurant chain in "news" articles. Photos of young, topless women appeared on ''Bild's'' page one [[below the fold]] as ''Seite-eins-Mädchen'' or "Page One Girls". On 9 March 2012 ''Bild'' announced the elimination of the "Page One Girls", instead moving its suggestive photos to its inside pages.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/ta-ta-german-tabloid-strips-front-page-of-daily-nude-a-820361.html |title=Ta Ta!: German Tabloid Strips Front Page of Daily Nude |work=[[Spiegel Online]] |date=3 September 2012 }}</ref>

In 2004 ''Bild'' was publicly reprimanded twelve times by the {{Interlanguage link multi|Deutscher Presserat|de}} (German Press Council).<ref name=spiegel06/> This amounts for a third of the reprimands this self-regulation council of the German press declared that year. Up until 2012, it had received more reprimands than any other newspaper from this watchdog body.<ref name=CSM/>

After Julian Reichelt became editor in 2018, ''Bild'' took a generally anti-[[Angela Merkel]] line, and strengthened its anti-Putin, pro-NATO, pro-Israel position.<ref name=guardian-20200717/>

The left-leaning ''[[Der Spiegel|Spiegel]]'' magazine often accuses ''Bild'' of pushing Germany further right and questions ''Bild''{{'}}s moral standards and journalistic quality.<ref name="Pidd">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/28/spiegel-magazine-bild-germany-right|work=The Guardian|first=Helen|last=Pidd|title=Spiegel magazine accuses rival Bild of pushing Germany further right|date=28 February 2011}}</ref>

====International relations====
*During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], ''Bild'' editor Julian Reichelt accused Chinese leader [[Xi Jinping]] of surveillance and other human rights crimes in an editorial titled "What China owes us" on 20 April 2020. After the Chinese embassy to Germany said that the ''Bild'' editorial reproached "nationalism, prejudice, and hostility against China",{{cite quote|date=August 2022}} Reichelt responded "You [Xi], your government and your scientists had to know long ago that coronavirus is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it."<ref>{{cite web | title=Germany's largest paper to China's president: You're endangering the world | website=The Jerusalem Post | date=2020-04-20 | url=https://www.jpost.com/international/germanys-largest-paper-to-chinas-president-youre-endangering-the-world-625074}}</ref>
* During the [[2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict]], [[Paul Ronzheimer]], the deputy editor-in-chief and correspondent of ''Bild'', tweeted that [[Ilham Aliyev]], the [[President of Azerbaijan]], agreed to be interviewed by the newspaper, and that he suddenly changed his mind, specifying that the Azerbaijani side itself offered to conduct an interview with Aliyev. Then, aide to the Azerbaijani President, [[Hikmet Hajiyev]], responded with a tweet, calling his statement unprofessional and stating that Aliyev preferred to give interviews to professionals rather than the [[Yellow journalism|yellow press]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ria.ru/20201021/bild-1580914035.html |title=Помощник Алиева назвал немецкую газету Bild желтой прессой |date=22 October 2020 |access-date=22 October 2020 |language=ru |publisher=[[RIA Novosti]] }}</ref>