Sunday, July 23, 2017

Criticism of German News

Early this morning (Sunday), I noted that the ARD (German public TV crowd) had finally put up the analysis over German media coverage for the immigration period, and were very critical of the one-sided nature of the news journalists involved.

Where did ARD stack it?  Taggeschau's web page....under the 'Fact Checker'.  

They basically noted that the analysis did exist and laid out the basic theme of the report.  Beyond that....nothing.  It reminded you of some kid who stole grandmother's blueberry pie, and has been discovered with blue-spots all over his mouth....trying not to admit he did it, but it's obvious.

I then went to the bottom where they have to allow commentary by the public.  92 folks made observations....most all of them noted that they felt the one-sided nature of the immigration stories told from 2013 to 2016.   Anger and frustration?  You get that impression as you read through the commentary.  

One of the commentary reactions by readers even put it correctly.  You cannot trust the news media completely.  You need to filter information.  You need to use various sources and read through different pieces to arrive at a understanding.  Weigh information that you get, and determine if any piece of it could be fake news. In other words, use common sense.  

At one point in the public commentary, I came to this one interesting prospective....the individual felt they were back in the old GDR (East Germany), where one-sided reporting was normal and regularly accepted.  In some ways, that is a valid point in this amusing analysis. 

What happens next?  Anyone's guess.  Maybe a public chat forum comes up in three or four weeks (after the summer vacation period for the networks), with this as a topic.

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