Joe Chialo Skips Antisemitism Funding Hearing After Botched Invite
The inquiry into Berlin’s culture funding scandal has hit another snag: former culture senator Joe Chialo won’t testify next week. Instead, he's headed to Africa.
The parliamentary committee examining how Berlin’s culture administration handed out antisemitism prevention funds can’t question ex-senator Joe Chialo as planned. His lawyer told the committee Chialo didn’t receive the summons in time – and fresh reporting says it was sent to the wrong address in the first place.
The timeline is awkward. The committee office sent the summons to the Senate Chancellery at the end of April; it was only forwarded to Chialo on Monday, nearly four weeks later. He was slated for a hearing next Friday at the Abgeordnetenhaus; now, that’s off.
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.
And look at you: scrolling, clicking, squinting at blurred text just to get a little further. If you'll go to that much effort to read HEIST, you can surely give us one email. That's the whole price, and the rest of the story is right behind it.
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.