The responsibility of withholding information

Is it the responsibility of the press to filter news to keep populist movements in check? The answer to this question seems to be two sided. Intuitively, I’d say no since people should be able to decide by themselves how to handle information provided by the media. Journalists tell you things which should be as objective as possible and the reader uses its brain to judge. Simple as that.

On the other hand, withholding facts from the reader — such as the culprit’s nationality — in order not to allow right wing movements to abuse this information for their purposes seems highly important to me since a lot of people apparently lack understanding in terms of processing news, especially when it comes to culturally related topics. Talking about crime stories, some seem to forget that in most cases the culprit’s nationality is not of any importance at all. If we take the murder of the 19 year old student from Freiburg as an example, it is of immense significance to note that the case is not representative for ‘‘Afghan or Muslim culture’’ — to use a far too generalizing term. Muslims are in no way more likely to rape or to kill than ‘‘we’’ are. This view is also represented in the German Press Code:

‘‘Richtlinie 12.1 — Berichterstattung über Straftaten
In der Berichterstattung über Straftaten wird die Zugehörigkeit der Verdächtigen oder Täter zu religiösen, ethnischen oder anderen Minderheiten nur dann erwähnt, wenn für das Verständnis des berichteten Vorgangs ein begründbarer Sachbezug besteht. Besonders ist zu beachten, dass die Erwähnung Vorurteile gegenüber Minderheiten schüren könnte.’’ (Pressekodex des Presserates)

However, populists abuse the term ‘‘culture’’ as a tool of separating. By holding an essentialist view on culture, claiming it to be a fixed, stable concept, they exclude the possibility of people with a different set of values and beliefs integrating into German society. Consuming news without using it for a political stance seems to get rare.