Wikimedia Commons: Bärbel Miemietz, CC BY-SA 4.0, Ferran Cornellà, CC BY-SA 4.0, Vincent Villwock, CC BY-SA 4.0
For the last 10 days, Die Linke — the party that won the Berlin state elections by a comfy margin — has been in "preliminary" talks with the Greens and the SPD about forming a coalition. Under normal circumstances, coalition talks go straight to the "exploratory" phase, but despite the fact that the red-red-green alliance has been the predicted outcome for months now, the process has stumbled over the issues of antisemitism and so-called 'clan' connections after a post-election media feeding frenzy.
Now, the three parties have come to their first joint agreement in direct response to the public controversy, announcing on Thursday that they'll move into exploratory talks — one step closer to an actual governing coalition.
HEIST is a worker-owned online magazine, founded by writers and editors who after years working across Berlin's media landscape believed something essential was missing.
Anyone living here has felt a growing gap between the city as it actually is and the version being served up by mainstream outlets. We experienced that disconnect firsthand. We saw political censorship shape coverage decisions and felt the weight of billionaire ownership land directly on our work. It reached a point where we could either keep going along with it, or try to build something better.
That's why we created HEIST.
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Real journalism costs money. We commission the hard-hitting, well-reported, long-form work everyone wants to read but nobody seems to publish anymore.
The future of this city is still in the balance. We intend to be part of that struggle. We hope that you'll join us.
