Newspaper criticism | Journalists in defensive mode

I recently saw a story on Instagram from a journalist. It read something like this: "I'm looking for someone who is planning to leave the country for fear of racist violence and who would be willing to talk to me." All sorts of data suggest that people with a migrant background live dangerously in Germany. In polls, the AfD is roughly on par with the CDU/CSU. In 2024, Germany recorded a peak in right-wing extremist violence . Some new groups of young right-wing extremists are terrorizing entire regions with violence.

Articles about people who want to leave the country because of rampant racism are popular. The mainstream weekly newspaper "Zeit" alone published more than half a dozen articles on the topic last year, closely followed by the left-liberal "Taz." Reading them, it seems as if Germany will soon be without people with a migration background.

At this point, as cynical as it may sound, one must speak of a journalistic trend. Desperate journalists searching for desperate people who want to leave the country. A snowball effect. Anyone who wasn't desperate yet will certainly be after hearing the reports of people who want to leave Germany.

Texts like these have a fundamental legitimacy. They tell us something about a country when a group of people is sitting with their suitcases packed. However, I have some slight doubts about the honesty of these texts. My doubts by no means apply to the protagonists.

The problem with the flood of this kind of text is the focus. When it comes to the question "Fight or Flight?", the chosen mode is clear: Flight. This mode is a defensive one.

You don't have to believe Germany is on the verge of 1933 to have doubts about the flood of these texts. The criticism of these texts is primarily strategic and directed at the journalists. Is the analysis: There are no battles to win, we'll lose anyway, so I'm reporting on people on the defensive?

If the authors consider it shortly before 1933, why the exclusive focus on migrants? Weren't leftists and opposition figures the first to leave the country back then? Where are the texts about leftists fleeing abroad? And who can afford to flee? Who has the knowledge, the money, the social contacts, the "right" passport?

And which country are they fleeing to? France? Unemployment and police violence are higher there; so is support for their right-wing extremist party. Austria? Poland? USA? Support for nationalism is also higher there than in Germany.

How about writing texts about staying and fighting? Fight mode! Where are the texts about migrant self-organization? Where is the search for an anti-fascist popular front, where are the outraged activists? When will journalists look for people whose motto is: We will win the final battle? They would have a reader.