The embarrassing artificial interview
On April 15, the weekly edition of Die Aktuelle was released on German newsstands, a magazine aimed at a female audience whose ambitions include the story of modern society and the lives of stars. It is certainly difficult to understand how a cover that advertised Michael Schumacher’s “first interview” in large letters after the tragic skiing accident in Meribel 2013, created using artificial intelligence software, could go unnoticed. All over the world, through social networks and dedicated articles, the initiative of the magazine published in Germany has been criticized, denouncing its evident improper character and poor taste given the conditions of the seven-time Formula 1 world champion.
The reaction of the Schumacher family
It wasn’t the first time that Die Aktuelle used the Schumacher family on the cover to attract more readers. In 2014 the magazine claimed that Michael was “sitting in the sun”, complete with photos of the former Ferrari driver with sunglasses, giving hope for an improvement of his health. But not only that, because in 2015 he had evoked “a new love” in Corinna’s life, which in the internal pages turned out to be news on the love life of the eldest daughter Gina-Maria.
It therefore seems evident how the weekly magazine – whose circulation is 228,000 copies – often crosses the limits of decency in order to reach new audiences y looking for sensation stories.
Sabine Kehm, historic spokesperson for the Schumacher family, has assured her intention to move in terms of legal actions to protect the privacy of her client, as has already been done in previous years to those who try to speculate on Michael’s health.
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The position taken by the editor of Die Aktuelle
The story developed further on the evening of Friday 21 April, with the FUNKE Women Group GmbH, the owner of the magazine, which through some comments made by managing director Bianca Pohlmann apologized to the Schumacher family. The position of distancing from the incident was clear: “This article of poor taste and misleading attitude should never have appeared in Die Aktuelle. It in no way meets the standards of journalism that we and our readers have come to expect from a publisher like Funke,” the press release reads.
But there was also a direct consequence following the fake interview: the “effective immediately” dismissal of chief editor Anna Hoffmann was announced, held responsible for the two-page interview conducted through the character.ai site, which did not bear the signature of any journalist. She had held the position since 2009.
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