The Banality of the Lie

German state broadcasting aired a video generated by „artificial intelligence“—as if it were real (nius.de, 17.2.2026). And yet, my thesis is that (in this case) nobody at state broadcasting actually lied. Let me explain!

Fake News in State Broadcasting

The Heute Journal (state TV news program) wanted to show how terrible it is that Trump is enforcing American laws. And they illustrated it with fake news. Digital lies. Horror fairy tales. Mother, children, brutal ICE agents. Leftist lie-world, willingly illustrated by Comrade AI.

Meanwhile, they first took the extra-lie-rich Heute Journal segment offline, then re-edited and re-uploaded it.

We hear various explanatory approaches. State broadcasting itself says the „AI“ label fell under the digital editing table during the production process. It sounds to me like a poorly thought-out emergency lie.

This explanation, if it were true, de facto admits they’re running manipulative propaganda. The state broadcasters know that dramatic images have emotional impact even when words suggest content-based restrictions. (That’s why warning labels on cigarette packs in Europe are supplemented with the most disgusting shock images possible.)

The most obvious assumption is, of course, that the state broadcasters very deliberately deployed a fake video to strengthen the anti-Trump narrative prescribed by propaganda.

Against this speaks the fact that the video used is already several months old and displays the AI logo quite clearly. Had the state broadcasters actively wanted to deceive, they would have generated a new video themselves. Or they would have removed the AI logo.

Erring in the Same Direction

I fear the explanation is far more banal. And I already presented it in 2017, in the essay „May We Talk About ‚Lies‘?“.

I read German mainstream newsrooms as „lying systems.“

The thesis: Mainstream newsrooms and government-funded NGOs hire people who don’t necessarily „lie,“ but all „err in the same direction.“

From private conversations we naturally know that many a „journalist“ quite well knows he’s saying untruths. But the motto is: Better rich liar than poor unemployed. Journalists can’t do anything else!

If I can’t say anything good about people, I want to assume as little bad as is logically possible. Therefore I operate with the assumption that no individual journalist lies—but that everyone in the newsroom reliably „errs in the same direction“ (and whoever doubts such errors very soon no longer works for that newsroom).

In the relevant broadcast, the topic of AI-generated fake videos is explicitly addressed. And then they air one themselves.

I suspect an honest and truthful explanation would go like this: „This broadcast also explicitly dealt with fake videos. We had gathered several examples. But because terrible chaos reigns among us and one hand doesn’t know what the other is lying, the videos got mixed up.“

The Banality of the Lie

The „banal“ explanation, however, when you think about it, is far worse than malicious intent!

People work in German state broadcasting for whom truth and untruth are not instinctive categories.

Hannah Arendt spoke of the „banality of evil.“ We should also speak of the „banality of the lie.“

People who feel no empathy or guilt, we call psychopaths, and there are certainly jobs in which they are superior to people „handicapped“ by conscience.

I don’t know what we should call people who feel no pain when saying untruths, because truth doesn’t feel like anything to them, the way colors don’t feel like anything to the colorblind. We could call them the „truth-blind.“ We all know in which jobs within »Unsere Demokratie« (Germany’s term for the emerging post-democratic order) the truth-blind positively shine.

Rebellion Through Truth

The reason government and propaganda actively hollow out the meaning of words and the concept of truth strikingly resembles the reason God confused the language of men when they built that tower to heaven at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). Confusing citizens‘ concepts and dismantling truth as a concept leaves the people and its citizens even more defenseless.

And so today it is practically an insurgent act (and can bring you a house search as punishment-without-charge if you do it publicly and carelessly) when you do what Saint Paul recommends to the Ephesians:

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, „speak truth each one of you with his neighbor“

– Ephesians 4:25a

To speak a relevant truth, even if only to yourself, let that be your daily act of secret rebellion!