How the German Press lies to its readers

From Politico:

More thoughtful observers see a problem deeper than political bias behind the coverage of Cologne and the broader refugee crisis: a press corps that has shifted from dispassionate observer to political actor. Instead of just reporting and analyzing events, some influential journalists, especially those who work for the public broadcasting networks, consider it their professional duty to serve as a counterweight to the populist rhetoric fueling the country’s right-wing revival, critics say.

“Cologne has helped blow the top off,” said Roland Tichy, a veteran German editor who now runs an eponymous opinion site of conservative commentary.

...

Even before Cologne, many Germans worried the media weren’t telling them everything. In a poll conducted by the respected Allensbach institute in December, 53 percent of respondents said they didn’t believe the media presented an accurate picture of the refugees’ qualifications for employment or other details.

A majority of Germans still trust the media, but more than 40 percent described the reporting on refugees as “one-sided.”

“There’s suspicion that they believe they don’t have to report on such assaults, especially involving migrants and foreigners, for fear of unsettling the public” — Hans-Peter Friedrich.

The most virulent strain of that distrust can be seen on Germany’s streets, during the regular marches by the anti-foreigner Pegida group. Even before the recent wave of refugees began arriving, right-wing marchers revived a slur popular during the Nazi-era – Lügenpresse, or lying press. A number of journalists have even been assaulted at the rallies.

While Germany’s printed press offers a multitude of opinions and views, the public broadcasting sector, once similarly diverse, has veered left in recent years, critics say.

“The public stations have evolved into Social Democratic/Green mainstream broadcasters,” Tichy said. “There’s no denying it.”

Hans-Peter Friedrich, a former interior minister under Angela Merkel, accused the public broadcasters of operating a “cartel of silence.”

“There’s suspicion that they believe they don’t have to report on such assaults, especially involving migrants and foreigners, for fear of unsettling the public,” he said.

Following Friedrich’s critique, a freelance reporter for German public broadcaster WDR told a Dutch radio program that she and her colleagues were obliged to toe the government’s line on the refugee crisis. “We’re a public broadcaster and are therefore expected to approach the problem in a more positive way,” Claudia Zimmermann, the reporter, said.

WDR, the local broadcaster in the Cologne region, vigorously denied Zimmermann’s characterization. The station said it “follows the highest journalistic standards,” including on the refugees.

Zimmermann has since retracted, saying she was nervous during the interview and had spoken “nonsense.”

The cautious approach to news, what one commentator recently called “nanny journalism,” is a vestige of the effort to reprogram Germans after World War II from Nazi sympathizers into peace-loving democrats.

This is how they view their job; they'll tell you what to think and how to think it.

“The public broadcasting contract remains and remains intact: to impart values, promote opinion- and decision-making in society and to ensure the functioning of democracy,” she said.

For the broadcasters’ detractors, Cologne represents the latest example of months of tendentious coverage. One common complaint is news reports on the refugees often picture families and women, even though single young men make up the vast majority of those arriving.

Another is that the broadcasters downplay or conceal events that might rouse the public’s emotions. The alleged gang rape of two teenage girls in southwest Germany on New Year’s Eve by four Syrian refugees was not reported by any of the main news programs, for example, despite the parallels to the attacks in Cologne and other cities.

SWR, the regional public channel, reported on the rapes but was quick to add: “The nationality of the suspects played an ‘insignificant role’ in the crime, investigators and prosecutors said.”

Such reporting has fueled criticism that the broadcasters soft pedal any hint of criminal behavior among refugees. It also earned them a new moniker: “Willkommens Broadcaster” — a play on the so-called “Willkommenskultur,” or culture of welcome that swept Germany in the early days of the refugee crisis.

This kind of censorship and propaganda will not work well in an era when news gets disseminated by the Internet. They are exposed as liars. But the "lying press" is aided by an educational establishment that indoctrinates children so that the press and the schools reinforce each other. It's the primary reason that so many people still believe the propaganda put out by the media.

Glenn Reynolds remarks (sarcastically):  

Good thing we never see anything like that from our own press.

Feminist Says Migrant Rape Is ‘Islamic Terrorism’, Claims Cologne Police Covered Up Problem For 20 Years

Does this mean that the cover-up is coming to an end?

After the New Years migrant sex attacks, a leading German feminist has said the politically correct “bubble has burst” and Germans should speak out against Islamism. She claimed Cologne police have been covering up Muslim rape for 20 years, and said that sexual violence was now being used as a weapon of war in Germany.

By in large, the feminist reaction to the migrant sex attacks has been to either play down the problem or deflect attention on to a non-existent “western rape culture”.

As Breitbart London reported shortly after the attacks, a local feminist group in Cologne held a protest in support of further mass migration, and a British feminist publication tried to justify abandoning female victims because the male Muslim attackers were “oppressed”.

Alice Schwarzer is a veteran “second wave” feminist who rose to prominence before feminism became preoccupied with apologising for Islamism and misogynistic Muslim culture.

She has previously called for a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in schools or other public settings, and warned of a creeping Islamisation of Europe, which in her opinion would lead to an erosion of human rights, especially women’s rights.

She told Die Welt in an interview yesterday that her Cologne based magazine Emma.de has been one of the only voices speaking out for women in Germany over the past 25 years.

“Since then, I have in certain circles been cheerfully reviled as a racist by multicultural, Greens, Leftists and converts”, she said, explaining that she has faced “enormous intimidation” for speaking out.

“Entire books have been published against me to try to shut me up. But in my case, it has not succeeded.”

She also made a startling revelation, which appeared to suggest that Germany police have been covering up the scale of migrant and Muslim rape for more that two decades.

“20 years ago, a Cologne police officer said to me: ‘Alice, 70 to 80 percent of all rapes in Cologne go to the account of Turks.’ I was shocked and replied: ‘You absolutely must make it public! Even a Turk is not born as a rapist. There must be causes. What’s going on here? What can we do?’

“But the message was clear: ‘No way, that’s not politically opportune’. And it is this kind of political correctness that conceals the circumstances,” she said.

She also said that there are in fact many people in Germany who, like her, feel, “critical about the development of so many migrants and refugees in Germany and their failure to integrate”. She said such people “fear the racism accusation”, but after Cologne, “This bubble has now burst”.

Not until it appears in the mainstream publications and on the broadcast media.  They are still in cover-up mode.

Why libs oppose Bernie's call to have cops investigate campus rapes

We know why liberals do not want cops investigating accusation of rape, because most of them are false.

How do I "know" this?

The Duke lacrosse case.

UVA.

Mattress Girl.

Plus numerous other times women perjured and got away with it. Seldom are cops allowed to investigate because that may lead to perjury charges.

But you must understand, feminists do not care if women are raped. Look at the New Year's Eve rapes of thousands of women because they are white Christians by hordes of Muslim men. The attacks were coordinated and aimed at striking fear in Europeans. It is 700 AD again.

Nary a peep from any American liberals about that real Culture of Rape. It does not push their anti-American, anti-Western agenda.

The European Media & the Cologne Attacks

From a letter to the Irish Times.

Scally’s bizarre use of “groping” is close to the worst imaginable example of PC disinformation from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. “Groping” is a word better reserved for the awkward and/or unwanted advances of an adolescent teenager in regard to someone roughly his or her own age. Here, instead, we have (if Scally’s sources are to be believed) 30 adult men who organized a premeditated attack on a child—not a “young woman” as Scally mischaracterizes her—a child—a person under 18. (18 is the age of majority in most of Europe, including Germany.) This child was not “groped”—I had fingers at every orifice—she was the victim of sexual assault, rape, and attempted rape by multiple perpetrators. Again, groping generally refers to wanted or unwanted touching or fondling. The victim here did not describe “groping;” she described something far more serious: sexual assault and rape.

If Scally knows the difference between groping and raping, then his usage here publicly victimized the victim a second time, and he also misinformed all his Irish Times readers. On the other hand, if Scally’s command of standard English usage is so poor to the extent that he really does not know the difference, then he should open his eyes, mind, and heart, and speak to his mother, sister, or daughter—someone—anyone—or, he could just buy a standard college-level English dictionary. But either way, whether Scally knows the difference or not, The Irish Times has lost my trust.

Scally assures the reader that the elite German and international mainstream media did not cover-up the Cologne attacks. Who could possibly believe a messenger such as this?

Pulling in the Welcome mat

'Refugees not welcome': Thousands of protesters wave signs and flags as they demonstrate in German city of Leipzig over influx of migrants they blame for sex attacks in Cologne over the New Year

Xenophobic rally organised by PEGIDA targets refugees and Chancellor Angela MerkelProtesters chanted 'We are the people', 'Resistance!' and 'Deport them!'Signs read 'Refugees not welcome!' and 'Islam=Terror'Six Pakistani men and one Syrian attacked on by vigilantes in CologneTwo men in hospital after 'revenge' attacks organised on FacebookReports of sexual assault and robbery in NYE attacks now over 500See more news on the migrant crisis at www.dailymail.co.uk/migrantcrisis

Today, the minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state where Cologne is located, admitted that people of foreign descent were responsible for virtually all of the violence on New Year's Eve in the city.

'Based on testimony from witnesses, the report from the Cologne police and descriptions by the federal police, it looks as if people with a migration background were almost exclusively responsible for the criminal acts,' Ralf Jaeger, interior minister from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia told a special commission on the Cologne violence.

'All signs point to these being north Africans and people from the Arab world,' he added. 'Based on what we know now from the investigation, asylum seekers who arrived in the past year are among the suspects.'

Cologne has a significant first and second generation immigrant population and racial tension has heightened in the wake of New Years Eve.

Feminists: We finally found the real rape culture for you

It's not on college campuses, and you are afraid to name it.

The most disturbing thing about the Cologne attacks was the prevalence of sexual assault as a weapon, complete with gangs of Muslim men stalking German women through the streets, yelling obscenities at them and threatening them with sexual violence. Note to Western feminists: we finally found real “rape culture” for you. Unfortunately, it is not found primarily among middle-class American college boys, which is what you were hoping for.

Der Spiegel Shows What the German Ruling Class Thinks the People

Chaos and Violence: How New Year's Eve in Cologne Has Changed Germany

Der Spiegel has a lengthy article about the violence perpetrated by “North African” youths in Germany – on New Year’s Even in Cologne.  The article addressed the attacks with a primary focus on politics.  The authors describe opponents of unlimited immigration as right-wing crazies who are “happy” that the attacks occurred.  Nowhere is there an indication that the policies that they championed have gone horribly wrong.  Like Obama describing one of his policy disasters, they assume the role of detached bystanders instead of active participants.

A lot happened on New Year's Eve in Cologne, much of it contradictory, much of it real, much of it imagined.

They don't tell what was contradictory.  Let me provide a clue:  the press refusing to report until forced to.  What was imagined?  The groping?  The assaults?  The thefts?  The rapes?  The identity of the criminals?

“Some was happenstance, some was exaggerated and much of it was horrifying. In its entirety, the events of Cologne on New Year's Eve and in the days that followed adhered to a script that many had feared would come true even before it actually did. The fears of both immigration supporters and virulent xenophobes came true.”

And what were the fears of the immigration supporters?  Tell us please.  We don’t recall.  Only opponents of inviting a million Muslim refugees, mostly North African youths, expressed fears that it would not go well. 

“For some, the events finally bring to light what they have always been saying: that too many foreigners in the country bring too many problems along with them. For the others, that which happened is what they have been afraid of from the very beginning: that ugly images of ugly behavior by migrants would endanger what has been a generally positive mood in Germany with respect to the refugees.”

Here we have "some" who were opposed to the influx of foreigners and "others" who were afraid of the results.  The way the Spiegel's tells it no one saw this ending happily.  Who were those “some” who predicted the problems?  The ones you label virulent xenophobes?  And who were the “others” that were afraid of ugly images?  And that “generally positive mood” you speak of.  Was that real, or were the images that the press chose to show designed to further the meme that bringing in a million Muslim "youths" was a really good idea?

“The pressure built up by the images and stories from Cologne make it virtually impossible to continue on as before. That, too, is a paradox: The pressure would be no less intense even if not a single one of the refugees and migrants who arrived in 2015 were among the perpetrators.”

Are you implying that resistance was building among the ordinary German people about an influx of immigrants who did not wish to become good German burghers?  Who had a foreign culture and morals and were not terribly interested in adopting the culture and morals of the people they settled amongst?

“New Year's Eve marks a shift because it crystallized a widespread unease with state inaction.”

Where have I been reading about that?  The press has been telling stories about the wonderful welcome that the refugees have received: food, clothing, shelter, and welcome banners held up by happy Germans is the impression that the media proclaimed.  Unease?  Really?  Not the way the press told it.  

“The happenings on the square between the Cologne Cathedral and the main train station was as symbolic as they were real: symbolic of the state's powerlessness in the face of chaos and crime.”

Really?  The German state powerless in the face of chaos and crime?  Not really.  But if the state refuses to admit that they have a problem, the problem will fester and get bigger.  If the state turns a blind eye to it and the press refuses to acknowledge it, eventually Cologne on New Year's Eve happens.

Which brings us to what Der Spiegel refer to sarcastically as the “Lying press.” 

“All established media have been confronted with the same phenomenon. In Germany, there is a stable minority that is convinced that the country's broadcasters, newspapers and magazines are controlled by dark powers and have agreed to suppress bad news about foreigners so as not to endanger the political project of welcoming refugees.”

A favorite strategy of the press is to identify people they don't like as crazy.  So here we have Der Spiegel claiming that opponents of importing millions of North Africans think that there are "Dark powers behind it."   There may be a few, but most Germans - like people everywhere - are not conspiracy theorists. They recognize horrible political mistakes when they see it.  And that “minority” that believes the press lies is 41% of the German people.  There are not that many things that 41% of the German people agree on.

Referring to the temporary press blackout of the mass crimes committed by those North African youths:

“Julien F. Weikinnes, wrote: "What would have happened if 100 Pegida followers had raped 300 Muslims? There would probably have been a breaking news alert and a live story from the Cologne train station."

Would Der Spiegel like to deny that?  

“Yet according to a survey conducted by Allensbach, 41 percent of Germans believe that critical voices are suppressed when it comes to the refugee issue. On the right wing of the political spectrum, that belief has become a certainty.”

That's a majority of Conservatives and a huge number on both sides of the political spectrum 

And here’s what Der Spiegel writers think about those who have been proven right:

 

“Right-wing populists and extremists are positively celebrating what happened in Cologne as confirmation of their long-held beliefs about foreigners and their allies with the "lying press." Whether PI-News (PI stands for "Politically Incorrect") or Pegida, whether AfD or the neo-Nazi party NPD, whether the right-wing party ProNRW or the newly converted far-right snobs: All of those who wrote about Cologne reveled in the incident.”

Translation: the people who were proven right about the wave of un-assimilated immigrants, about the crime and the rapes, are dismissed as right wing populists, extremists, neo-Nazis, and far-right snobs.  And they’re “reveling” in the way that German women have been groped, robbed and raped.  Right!  And the natural reaction to this crime wave is characterized as “nonsense”, not true, inaccurate, and exaggerated.

Before you think that New Year's Eve in Cologne is a new phenomenon:  

“In Cologne alone, more than 11,000 people have been robbed in this way in the last three years. According to police, all of the perpetrators have been male and in the majority of cases, they have come from North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria. The authorities are also investigating groups of men from central Africa and Kosovo. One person involved in these investigations has said most of the men have been in Germany for quite some time but only have a "tolerated" immigrant status, meaning officials could not confirm their country of origin due to missing travel documents. This milieu has little to do with the refugees who have arrived in Germany recently after fleeing places like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.”

So we have 11,000 robberies in three years in Cologne by males who are from North Africa.  And the Spiegel thinks that this crime wave was not committed by recent refugees is good news!  It’s incredibly horrible news.  The truth is that many North African immigrants who have been in Germany for years have created a sub-culture, a criminal class.  A culture what is going to be stronger, younger and more violent than the ones that came before.  

The events in Cologne have been a wake-up all to people across Europe and the US.  But if you were expecting apology from the culture that nurtures Der Spiegel, you would be sadly mistaken.

UPDATE: 

SEX CRIMES ACROSS GERMANY: THE COVERUP UNRAVELS