The Interview That Lied: Bahri Cani’s Theatre of Isolation

At the Brandenburg Gate, Bahri Cani echoed a phantom “Strategic Dialogue” to corner President Vjosa Osmani, proof that foreign-fed journalism can mistake theatre for truth.

Dear reader, I hadn’t really been aware of Bahri Cani before. He was one of those Berlin-based, DW-badged fixtures who float at the edge of your awareness polished, mild, apparently inoffensive. He came into focus only after a member of Kosovo’s parliament, Armend Zemaj, turned mid-interview and struck a citizen who’d had the audacity to call him a liar¹. Faced with an act that required only a clear sentence »this is unacceptable« Cani, as I read him, began to blur it. He spoke of violence as “not a solution,” hinted at “complexity,” and in doing so drifted towards justifying the aggressor. That was the moment I couldn’t ignore, and I wrote².

After that, we exchanged a few messages. I read through the avalanche of reactions online, most of them sharply against him. The hostility was so intense that some readers slipped into defamation, tossing out false claims as if outrage licensed invention. I had to step in, ask for evidence, remind them that indignation doesn’t suspend the duty to tell the truth. In the meantime, I started reading more of Cani’s work³. I found a body of reporting that, while competently produced, shared a pattern I couldn’t unsee. And then came his interview⁴ with President Vjosa Osmani. I watched it closely, and again, I couldn’t stay silent.

Here’s what I found.