When we last hit your inboxes, the FT was digging in its heels, defending the debunked narrative it peddled in early September that the navigation systems on Ursula von der Leyen’s jet were targeted by Russia as the Commission president’s plane was attempting to land in Bulgaria. We deconstructed the affair here (“On a wing and a prayer”) and here (“MIA: The FT, von der Leyen and their flight from Hell”).
In the wake of our reporting, the FT quietly “updated” (read: corrected) its report “to add clarifications since first publication”. The main change as far as we can tell is that the FT retoggled the amount of time von der Leyen’s plane was supposedly circling Plovdiv airport to 23 minutes from one hour.
But the central claims in the original FT report – that von der Leyen’s plane was forced to land using “paper maps” after the aircraft’s GPS systems were targeted by Russia – remain unchanged, even though there is no evidence to support those assertions.
Why we care: Because the FT report created something of an international incident by suggesting that the EU’s most important official was put in danger by the Russian interference. In other words, an act of war.
The Chattering Classes are not the only ones puzzled by the FT’s intransigence on the questions surrounding its specious story. Fabio De Masi, a prominent German MEP who played a key role in Berlin’s reckoning with both Wirecard and the Cum Ex scandal surrounding former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has been prodding both the Commission and the FT to come clean.
In a recent exchange of emails with Hugh Carnegy, the FT’s “senior editor for quality and accuracy,” De Masi called on the paper “to engage in a serious manner with the contradictions in its reporting.”
“The Bulgarian aerospace authorities, the head of state and even the EU Commission have distanced themselves from the FT reporting,” De Masi wrote. “Euractiv, Politico and several newspapers have debunked the main claims of the FT story.”
In a response to De Masi, Carnegy wrote that the FT was sticking to the amended version of its article.
“We have looked carefully at the issues you raise,” Carnegy said. “We are confident in the reporting and veracity of the article.”
Earlier this week we caught up with De Masi to discuss the flight affair, why it’s important and what it says about the ethics of EU media. Below are a few highlights edited for clarity.
What did you make of the FT’s response to your demands for a fuller explanation of its reporting on von der Leyen’s flight?
De Masi: “The FT has a responsibility to make clear how an hour shrinks to 23 minutes…This is something you have to explain to readers. It's like you're watching a movie, and you see a couple dressed in a park. And the next minute, they're naked in a bedroom, but nobody knows what happened in between. There must be some explanation here.”
What do you think this episode says about the culture of reporting in Brussels?
De Masi: I think this is an example of embedded journalism… There seems to be this ‘Eurobubble factor’ in reporting, because a lot of the journalists who are here, maybe for a long time, send their kids to similar schools, enjoy the perks of the Brussels bubble. And I think maybe sometimes the relationship between politics and journalism in an expat community becomes too close.”
