A Murder Not Made Public — Why That? And Why the Outcry?

Why is there even a sudden outcry after the Tagesschau didn’t report the murder in Freiburg? Tagesschau doesn’t always cover murders and if, no regional cases as they claim.

The reason is simple: People felt misinformed. Some of them even suspect censorship of politically incorrect facts.

On the one hand, I understand the ARD’s point: Murders are happening too often, sadly. You cannot cover them all.
BUT the detail I consider important is another one. The Murder was probably conducted by a refugee with a pre-existing criminal record.

For now, I want to concentrate on the circumstance that the suspect is a refugee. Looking through comment sections throughout online media, this is one of the major reasons for the outcry.
A refugee seeks shelter in this country for safety. If they are allowed to stay, they should be able to trust local authorities to keep them safe and help them fulfill basic needs. Someone in need of a safe place — and anyone else, really — should not be the one committing a crime but rather be thankful.

This is what I think makes this case a rather special one. Someone proposedly seeking shelter in this country rapes and murders a local inhabitant. That this case was only a “regional” affair is therefore rather unlikely to me. On top of that, international media too reported the murder and many smaller, regional media picked the topic up too. But not the Tagesschau. From my point of view, this is the major reason for the massive outcry to happen.

What makes the ARD’s defense even less thought-out to me is their answer to a comment about them reporting black people shot by U.S. cops. For the Tagesschau, African Americans being shot by the U.S. police are more relevant to our society than a refugee murdering an innocent German citizen.
With the refugee crisis going on and the chancellor being criticised for her refugee politics, I honestly doubt that the speaker in this video has thought the answer to the comment through properly.

I understand that people resort to claiming that the Tagesschau tried to excercise censorship due to their rather vague defenses.

Where did the trust in the news go? Federal media must know best afterall, right?

After the incidents in Cologne during New Year’s Eve 2015/2016 that were only reported slowly to the public with some details coming up only after weeks, trust in news media and “official sources” has received a major damage.

A few people I know went as far as claiming that most of our mainstream media tried to block out a truth that wasn’t allowed to exist. Including criminal refugees.

If the Stern is right by claiming that the suspect who probably murdered the student from Freiburg has a criminal record and lied about his age, a much wider perspective on the problem opens up to me.
While I personally think that it would be farfetched to claim that the Tagesschau tried to deny the existence of criminal refugees in general, it does leave room for debate whether the suspect being a refugee was actually involved in the decision of not publishing the murder and the later arrest of a suspect.
With voices critical of taking in more refugees on the rise, delivering the public a murder probably conducted by a refugee would certainly not being in the elite’s mind. And now, with the Stern and Focus claiming that the refugee in question was using weaknesses in our asylum systems and was actually convicted and charged in Greece before, these critical voices will be having new fuel for their debates.
Not only that, but people considering mainstream media a form of lying press have additional arguments to use now. And this time, these might even be founded.

The Tagesschau has neglected to think about the importance of the topic to this year’s context and people are now showing them exactly that. The common person felt a lack of important information and some people even felt the news to be censored in order to “hide a truth that must not be.”

Well, think what you will. We may never find out the offcial truth why the Tagesschau did not report on the incident. Their current excuses, however, sound invalid to me and therefore, I feel that the outcry is justified and even needed in a democratic country.
“Trust, but verify.”