ABSTRACT
This chapter, by The New York Times's Berlin correspondent, explains how – after many dramatic scenes of the refugees’ flight had been covered, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's pronouncements had been tracked – reporters in Germany tackled a very different challenge: How to report on the hard-to-document integration of nearly one million people. What were the dilemmas faced by the new arrivals as they navigated a foreign culture that offered them safety, but differed in many crucial ways from the homes they had left behind? And how did German society adapt? The chapter focuses on the Times’ months-long investigation of how the city of Weimar dealt with the arrival and resettlement of 900 refuges, including the reporters’ efforts to gain access to a variety of actors and to make the story compelling to international audiences. It explores the challenges journalists faced when trying to balance viewpoints on integration from each side, while finding engaging narratives in the very slow process of adaptation – one that will long outlast the crisis itself.
