Thursday, February 25, 2016

Germans are losing faith in their media. Nowhere is this more apparent than in mistrust of refugee crisis media coverage.

A lengthy piece in Der Spiegel. But well worth a read. Excerpt:
"(Isolde) Beck felt vindicated in a suspicion she had had for months: that the media had long concealed the extent of crimes committed by refugees and migrants. As early as the end of last year, she says, she was surprised to read reports that refugees were no more criminal than Germans. 'How could the media have known this at the time?' Beck asks. As far as she is concerned, it's clear that 'the media manipulated their reporting to reassure people.'
"In voicing these sentiments, the SPIEGEL reader joined the ranks of a movement that seems to have gained momentum in recent weeks -- one that, to varying degrees, is claiming that journalists are no longer capable of being independent and unbiased.
"It is a phenomenon that defies simple description. According to polls, 40 percent of Germans believe the media are not credible. And the loudest of them all, people like Tatjana Festerling, an organizer with the anti-immigrant, Islamophobic PEGIDA movement, have even taken to calling on the public to get out the pitchforks to chase journalists out of newspaper offices."
The whole story--it's long

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