Editing Bild (section)

==Reception==
''[[Der Spiegel]]'' wrote in 2006 that'' Bild'' "flies just under the nonsense threshold of American and British tabloids ... For the German desperate, it is a daily dose of high-resolution soft porn".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/sex-smut-and-shock-bild-zeitung-rules-germany-a-412021.html|title=Sex, Smut and Shock Bild Zeitung Rules Germany|work=Der Spiegel|date=25 April 2006|access-date=26 August 2012}}</ref>

It is argued ''Bild'''s thirst for sensationalism results in the terrorizing of prominent celebrities and stories are frequently based on the most dubious evidence. The journalistic standards of ''Bild'' are the subject of frequent criticism.

{{Interlanguage link multi|BILDblog|de}} is a popular German [[blog]] that when founded was dedicated solely to documenting errors and fabrications in ''Bild'' articles.<ref name=guardian-20200717/> In 2005 BILDblog received the ''[[Grimme Online Award]]'' for its work. Since 2009 BILDblog has also reported on errors and fabrications in other newspapers from Germany and elsewhere.

[[Heinrich Böll]]'s 1974 novel ''[[The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum]]'', and the 1975 [[The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (film)|movie]] based on it, used a fictional stand-in for ''Bild'' to make a point about its allegedly unethical journalistic practices. Böll's essay in the edition of 10 January 1972 of ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' (titled "{{Interlanguage link multi|Will Ulrike Gnade oder freies Geleit?|de}})<ref name=spiegelboell>{{cite news |url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-43019376.html |title=Will Ulrike Gnade oder freies Geleit? Schriftsteller Heinrich Böll über die Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe und "Bild" |last1=Böll |first1=Heinrich |date=1972-01-10 |newspaper=[[Der Spiegel]] |access-date=2016-02-03 |language=de}}</ref> was sharply critical of Bild's sensationalist coverage of the [[Baader-Meinhof Gang]]. In the essay, Böll stated that what ''Bild'' does "isn't [[Crypto-fascism|cryptofascist]] anymore, not fascistoid, but naked fascism. Agitation, lies, dirt."<ref name=spiegelboell/>

[[Judith Holofernes]], lead singer of German band ''[[Wir sind Helden]]'', wrote a scathing open letter to Bild's advertising agency after they asked her to star in a campaign. "Bild is not a harmless guilty pleasure", she wrote, but a "dangerous political instrument—not only a high-magnification telescope into the abyss but an evil creature".<ref name="Pidd"/>

Writer [[Max Goldt]] has described the paper as ''"an organ of infamy"'' and posited that ''"one has to be as impolite to its editors as is legally possible; they are bad people who do wrong"''.<ref>Goldt, Max: "Mein Nachbar und der Zynismus". In: "Der Krapfen auf dem Sims", Rowohlt, 2001, ISBN 978-3499233494</ref>

===Images of topless women===
For 28 years from 1984 to 2012, ''Bild'' had [[toplessness|topless]] women featuring on its first page; in total, the paper published more than 5,000 topless pictures.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/mar/09/international-womens-day-germany|work=The Guardian|first=Roy| last=Greenslade|title=Bild banishes its topless model pictures after 28 years|date=9 March 2012}}</ref>

In 2014 Sophia Becker and Kristina Lunz launched a campaign, [[Stop Bild Sexism|Stop ''Bild'' Sexism]], to end the use of sexualized images of women in Bild. The campaign was inspired by the [[No More Page 3]] campaign to get ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'' in the United Kingdom to stop publishing images of half-naked women on [[page 3]].<ref name=Local>{{cite news|last1=Barfield|first1=Tom|title=Meet the women fighting German tabloid sexism|url=http://www.thelocal.de/20150122/meet-the-women-fighting-tabloid-sexism-in-germany|access-date=29 January 2015|work=[[The Local|The Local (German edition)]]|date=22 January 2015}}</ref><ref name=Greenslade>{{cite news|last1=Greenslade|first1=Roy | author-link = Roy Greenslade |title=No More Page 3 inspires campaign against topless pictures in Germany|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jan/23/no-more-page-3-inspires-campaign-against-topless-pictures-in-germany|access-date=29 January 2015|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=23 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title = Kritik an Bild-Zeitung: Girls und Sexismus|url = http://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/kritik-an-der-bild-zeitung-reduziert-auf-brueste-1.2326843|newspaper = [[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]|access-date = 20 August 2015|issn = 0174-4917|language = de|first = Kathleen|last = Hildebrand|date = 30 January 2015}}</ref> Lunz argues that ''Bild'''s frequent use of images of unclothed women makes its reporting of [[sexual assault]] and [[Sexual harassment|harassment]] "[[Sexism|sexist]] and [[Voyeurism|voyeuristic]]."<ref>{{Cite news|url = http://www.theeuropean.de/kristina-lunz/9751-sexismus-in-der-bild-zeitung|title = Der tägliche Herrenwitz. Mit Macht kommt Verantwortung – die "Bild"-Zeitung nutzt ihren medialen Einfluss trotzdem viel zu oft für sexistische Berichterstattung.|last = Lunz|first = Kristina|date = 6 June 2015|work = The European. Das Debatten-Magazin. Debatten: Sexismus im Deutschland.|access-date = 19 August 2015}}</ref> Becker says that ''Bild'' contributes to the normalisation of sexism in German society.<ref name="Becker">{{cite web | url=http://zodculture.com/sexism/ | title=Sexism in The Media & Its Violent Implications | access-date=20 August 2015 | archive-date=26 March 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220326185919/http://zodculture.com/sexism/ | url-status=dead }}</ref> The petition had over 35,000 signatures in January 2015,<ref name=Local /> and [[Axel Springer SE|Springer]], the newspaper's publisher, responded by issuing a statement of values. These include the importance of mutual respect and maintaining respectful interactions.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://andersundgleich-nrw.de/415-petition-gegen-sexismus-in-der-bild.html|title = Petition gegen Sexismus in der BILD|date = 16 January 2015|access-date = 19 August 2015|website = andersundgleich|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033254/http://andersundgleich-nrw.de/415-petition-gegen-sexismus-in-der-bild.html|archive-date = 17 November 2015|url-status = dead}}</ref> ''Bild'' stopped publishing "topless productions of our own with women" in March 2018, three years after ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'', while continuing to publish photos of provocatively-posed models dressed in underwear alone.<ref name=telegraph2018>{{cite news|first1=Abby|last1=Young-Powell|access-date=17 March 2018|title=German tabloid Bild hails 'end of an era' as it drops topless models|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/12/german-tabloid-bild-hails-end-era-drops-topless-models/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/12/german-tabloid-bild-hails-end-era-drops-topless-models/ |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=12 March 2018}}{{cbignore}}</ref>