ABSTRACT
In 2015 and 2016, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in Germany via the Mediterranean and the Balkans shook not only parts of German society but also the German news media. Mainstream media faced their severest crisis, amidst a rising public outcry (and even street demonstrations) that they had tried to hide the dark sides of migration. This chapter analyzes how some journalists, including the author and her colleagues at the leading weekly newspaper Die Zeit, sought to turn the challenge into an opportunity by focusing on three changes for the better: Making forced migration (from root causes in foreign countries to all facets of integration) into a mainstream topic of coverage; increasing transparency by making the debates over the inherent complexities and uncertainties of migration visible to the public and encouraging readers to engage in oppositional viewpoints; and recruiting diverse journalistic voices, among refugees but also in small-town and rural Germany to tell stories on national platforms from their perspectives, for their audiences.
