DThe “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) has voluntarily made public two statements of disapproval expressed by the German Press Council. The SZ published one of the disapproved articles on September 5, 2023. Under the headline “You don’t belong,” the newspaper reported on the nationality of refugees. She is said to have given the impression that only a small proportion of refugees arrive in Germany without a passport. In fact, it is more than 50 percent. The Press Council recognizes this as a violation of the duty of care in accordance with Section 2 of the Press Code.
In another article from September 8, 2023, entitled “Which perpetrators attack with the 'affect weapon'”, the SZ reported on knife attacks. The article argued that there was no connection with the origin of the perpetrators. The proportion of migrant and non-migrant perpetrators in knife attacks is approximately the same. The Press Council sees this claim as a violation of truthfulness and duty of care and justifies this by saying that the “Süddeutsche” did not take into account that the proportion of migrants in the total population is significantly lower and that they therefore commit crimes with knives to a comparatively higher extent criminal acts are involved.
It is unusual that the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” is now making public the disapproval of its contributions by the Complaints Committee of the Press Council, which made this decision at the beginning of December 2023. She is not forced to do this. As the self-regulatory body of the German press, the Press Council has three sanction options: notice, disapproval and reprimand.
In the event of disapproval, he determines violations of the press code, but leaves it up to the affected medium to decide whether it wants to publish the decision. The situation is different with the complaint that should or must be published.
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