1. Moscow's Payroll Clerk
He filmed Vladimir Putin cuddling with dogs. He played billiards with the Kremlin ruler at night. And he was with him on a red deer hunt in Siberia. Photos show the camouflage folklore in the Russian taiga, two men with fixed eyes and steaming cups in their hands, on the right the autocrat with a fur cap. On the left, Hubert Seipel, journalist, "the German Putin connoisseur par excellence" (ARD magazine "Titles, Theses, Temperaments"). When the Russian president gave an interview to German television, Seipel usually sat in the chair opposite: in 2009 a TV documentary about the state-owned company Gazprom, in 2012 the big Putin portrait on ARD, repeated 51 times to date, films, books and everything so close, so close to the ruler. Too close?
Secret documents now show that Seipel received money. From Russia. In 2018, he signed a "sponsorship contract" for at least 600,000 euros. The details of the deal can be found in the huge "Cyprus Confidential" data set, which is being evaluated by a SPIEGEL team with international partners. Contractor: a shell company in the Caribbean. In their impressive research, SPIEGEL and ZDF trace the trail of money back into Putin's entourage: "Seipel promoted trust and understanding and, along the way, solidified the political narratives that the men in Moscow liked," the colleagues write in their investigative story.
And Seipel? Admits payments from Russia. And he publicly makes fun of those who would sometimes insult him as a "KGB agent", sometimes as a "Putin smoocher". Excerpt from the Press Code, paragraph 15: "Anyone who allows himself to be bribed for the dissemination or suppression of news is acting dishonourably and unprofessionally."
"Our research shows that an award-winning television journalist, known for his pro-Putin coverage, has been receiving hidden payments from Russia for years that his audience did not know about," writes my colleague Joerg Diehl, our investigative coordinator. "This raises the urgent question of how independent Hubert Seipel's depictions were in the first place. NDR, for which Seipel reported on Russia as a TV reporter, and the Hamburg-based publishing house Hoffmann und Campe, which published his books, urgently need to clarify the extent to which their viewers and readers have been deceived."
Read the full story here: Award-winning German journalist received hundreds of thousands of euros from Russia
2. The AI accomplices
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Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA
There is a small group at SPIEGEL called the "AI accomplices." Sounds a bit like »The Three ???« or »Hanni&Nanni«, I know. In it: a few IT colleagues who deal with artificial intelligence, news experts from the editorial office, publishing managers, in short, all people who are curious about what AI can actually do. Where it can do our work – and where it can't. Our First Experiment: Could ChatGPT Write Messages for SPIEGEL.de? We trained the AI for weeks, taught it what was important to us, in terms of content and language: the most important things first, short sentences, strong verbs and few nouns please, and please no more than two numbers in a sentence. Oh yes, and please don't invent anything. Thanks.
With our own tool, we finally dared to test it under real conditions: We had the AI write texts, not publish them, but compared them with the news of our colleagues, and accompanied them scientifically. Actually, we wanted to do a kind of blind tasting, you know that from the orange juice commercial: A or B, which one is freshly squeezed? But we were quickly disillusioned: the AI provided wooden language, stubby headlines, wrong translations. Average grade: 4.03. If the AI had had its first day as a news editor, we would have sent it home sooner.
I was reminded of our news experiment when I read the essay by my colleague Stefan Schultz today. He writes about how AI and algorithms are already influencing our lives. And we did it unconsciously, without us having decided to do so. "I'm not going to walk through any shopping streets with a cardboard sign that says something like 'The end is near,'" Stefan writes to me. "But the thought of what's happening around us sends shivers down my spine." An example? A Facebook team was able to change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of people, depending on whether it flushed depressing or more positive content into the news feeds. And the TikTok algorithm reinforces beauty ideals that influence the body image of teenagers and sometimes create feelings of shame.
"We are already being influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day in our thinking, feeling and acting. And often so subtly that we don't even notice it," writes Stefan. I seriously wonder what is left of free will – and what we can do to protect it. As long as it's still possible."
Read the entire essay here: Am I still thinking that? Or is that already the AI?
3. Hospital or command center?
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Smoke over Shifa Hospital
Photo: Doaa Rouqa / REUTERS
The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City needs about 500 liters of fuel per hour so that people can save other people's lives: operate on injured people, care for babies in incubators, ventilate patients in intensive care units. But the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip is now surrounded by Israeli troops and cut off from supplies. The generators are at a standstill, there is a lack of gasoline. 300 liters were offered, but Hamas blocked the handover, Israel says. Who's right?
Why did the Israeli army surround the hospital in the first place? Because she suspects that it is a Hamas command center: intelligence information, they say. Which also means: not to be independently verified. Israel's army is responding to the Hamas massacre of October 7, in which more than 1200,240 people were killed and about <> hostages abducted. It is now fighting among the rubble of the bombed-out houses of Gaza City: mined streets, booby traps, snipers (more on this in the video here). And more than a million civilians on the run.
"Contact with people in the Gaza Strip is difficult," writes my colleague Monika Bolliger. "The telephone and internet connection has largely collapsed." In the past few days, Monika and her team have been able to reach several people at Shifa Hospital by phone and record what they describe. But even these statements are hardly verifiable. "The situation is obviously catastrophic: the hospital has been under fire for days, the incubators for premature babies have failed, three babies have already died," says Monika. When can patients be safely evacuated? So far, completely unclear.
Read the transcripts from Al-Shifa Hospital here: "We have to watch patients die"
More news and background information on the war in the Middle East can be found here:
Palestinians speak of at least six dead in Israeli military operation: According to Palestinian sources, at least six people were killed in an operation by Israel's military in the West Bank. The dead were between 21 and 32 years old, according to Ramallah.
UN Relief and Works Agency warns of total loss of communication in the Gaza Strip: The situation in the Gaza Strip is extremely precarious, and the mobile phone network has been unstable for weeks. Now, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency, the collapse of telecommunications is imminent.
The Troublemaker: Benjamin Netanyahu wants nothing to do with a share of responsibility for the war. He clings to power and prevents a rapprochement with the Palestinians. At the same time, an overwhelming majority of Israelis are calling for his departure.
What else is important today
Deutsche BahnTrain drivers' union GDL announces strikes: In the wage dispute with Deutsche Bahn, the German Locomotive Drivers' Union is betting on escalation. Shortly before the next round of negotiations, it has taken a decision to strike. Deutsche Bahn calls the timing an "absurdity".
The Left faction in the Bundestag decides to dissolve the party on 6 December: With the split of Sahra Wagenknecht and her comrades-in-arms from the Left Party, the parliamentary group in the Bundestag becomes too small. Now the MEPs have agreed on a dissolution.
Climate plans reduce emissions by only two percent instead of 43 percent: The international community has agreed to limit the rise in temperature. But the goals set so far are not enough, a recent report shows. What would have to happen now.
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
Why working more is often not worthwhile – and who is to blame: Errors in the social system ensure that citizens often do not benefit from overtime. Economist Andreas Peichl has calculated how big the problem is – and explains why it hasn't been solved by any government for 40 years.
Why pregnancies are a risk in the U.S.: Syphilis in newborns, risk of death in the puerperium for mother and baby: Having a child in the USA is ten times as dangerous as in Germany. In doing so, most infections could be easily avoided.
The glue that (still) holds the traffic light together: The German government finances many projects with the billions from the Climate and Transformation Fund. Now, however, the Constitutional Court could overturn the financing of the super fund – and plunge the traffic light into crisis.
What is less important today
Without pomp and circumstance: King Charles, 75, turned 75 today. He celebrated rather unspectacularly: there was a three-tiered cake, a choir sang, surprise, "Happy Birthday", and together with his wife Camilla, 76, he inaugurated the "Coronation Food Project" – sorted but still edible food is collected and distributed to those in need. The problem is that there is no job description," he said before his coronation. So you have to find your own way somehow." Would you like to review his loooong path to the throne in pictures? This way.
Mini Concave Mirror
Here you can find the whole concave mirror.
Cartoon of the Day
And tonight? European Championship Tickets!
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The logo of the European Football Championship 2024 on a smartphone display
Photo: Aleksandr Gusev / dpa
Well, were you lucky? 20 million have applied to enter the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany. But there were only 1.2 million tickets. If you have received a positive e-mail from Uefa today, congratulations, but even that is no guarantee for Schalalala and stadium sausage next year: The tickets must be paid for by Friday, 14 p.m., otherwise "the tickets will be removed from your user account," writes my colleague Mathis Vogel. He's put together everything you need to know. For example, what exactly the tickets cost. How many are left now. And what all those who were unlucky in the first round can do now.
And you, Mathis? "I didn't apply," he writes to me. That's what it is, this journalistic independence, see above.
Have a nice evening. Heartily
Yours sincerely, Jens Radü, Chief of Service