23yrs-old GERMAN Writing About Crime In German Newspaper Articles: A No-Judgement-Zone?
If you look through German newspapers, you will quickly realize that — in particular — the crime sections are all structured similarly. The headline of a story is immediately followed by a detailed description of what really happened. That also includes information on the people that were involved in the incident. Their age, their residence and, occasionally, their profession. These are the characteristics that commonly seem to matter. As long as you have the German citizenship….. The following screenshots will make clear what I am referring to:
What’s striking is that all of these headlines contain the delinquent’s nationality. A Nigerian, a Moroccan, an Afghan. The authors of these articles apparently seem to think that mentioning the country in which the person who’s said to have committed a crime was born is necessary.
The question is, though, DOES it matter?
To be honest, I do not think that it is important to mention where a criminal was born. What matters to me is what exactly happened and why. Sure, cultural differences and habits might have impact on one’s personality and the perception of what’s right and what’s wrong. However, I think that blaming a crime on someone’s origin establishes prejudices. Aside from the fact that you hardly find any headlines that explicitly refer to a German’s citizenship. Doesn’t that somehow create the following judgemental prejudice?
If a German commits a crime in Germany, it’s because of his/her personality and whatever reasons have caused him to behave that way. If a person with foreign origin, however, commits a crime in Germany, it’s because of his/her cultural background.
I really think that that’s extremely problematic. Instead of helping to reduce prejudices, authors use their power to establish even worse ones. Nevertheless, I want to show you one final example, in which I think mentioning the citizenship makes sense and, thus, is justified:
In this case, I would say that it is important to mention the delinquent’s foreign origin. Why? Because there is a clear connection between the citizenship and the content of the story. It contributes to one of the central aspects of the article: The Turk in Germany not wanting to go back to where he was born. Therefore, it is absolutely important to mention his foreign origin. This also leads to my final comment: An article should only contain information that really matter in context of what actually happened. Additional details should be selected carefully and — in particular — objectively.
