“Something is immensely rotten in the media republic”. The information dimension of the refugee crisis in europe

The article analyzes the reaction of German media to the assaults on women in Cologne and other German and European cities on New Year’s Eve 2015/2016. Nationwide TV channels and newspapers, with rare exceptions, did not report about the events till January 4 or even 5, causing outrage in social networks. This is serious evidence of deep problems in German and Western journalism. Due to the abundance of information resources, the mainstream media hold no monopoly on news delivery anymore. If they continue to compromise themselves, there is a danger of reorientation of the Western audience towards alternative sources of information: extremist Internet resources and foreign media, first of all the Russian ones.