That means the lying press. And, like, welcome to the club already, Germany. It appears that many Germans were not aware of this up until now. I mean, when has the media anywhere ever not been guilty of “embellished and inaccurate reporting?”
In a recent German survey, 44 percent of respondents said they partially, or wholly believe the media regularly lies to the people, as the Pegida movement asserts. Media experts (the people helping with the lying?) examine whether that’s true.
Media outlets in Germany “are controlled from the top,” and therefore spread “embellished and inaccurate reporting.” Nearly half of the 1,000 German citizens recently polled by the Dortmund-based Forsa Institute agreed with these statements.
Currently, the refugee situation dominates media reports. But Germans are simultaneously experiencing the crisis first-hand in their own towns and cities – and often finding dramatic differences between their perceptions of these events and journalists’ representations of them…
For example, Sebnitz: In this village of 8,000 residents in Saxony, where right-wing radicals often make headlines, the son of a German-Iranian couple, both of whom are pharmacists, died accidentally. The immediate headline read: “Neo-Nazis Drown Child.” In truth, the boy drowned after having a heart seizure. A newspaper that reported on the actual facts of the accident nevertheless added: But the way the mood is in Sebnitz, neo-Nazis could well have done it.”
Above all, the issue is often about choice of words: BBC World reported: “Dutch politician Geert Wilders acquitted of hate speech charges in The Hague.” Germany’s national news broadcast, Tagesschau, formulated the same story thus: “The Islamophobe and right-wing populist politician, Geert Wilders…”
