As of: February 21, 2024, 1:49 p.m
By: Moritz Maier
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The Munich Merkur (Merkur.de) reports the most balanced.
This is the result of the scientific study by the University of Mainz.
© Max Litzka / IPPEN.MEDIA/DALL·E (machine generated*)
In times of growing mistrust, scientists have examined the balance of German media companies.
The result: Merkur is at the top and belongs to a special network.
Many people's trust in the media is declining.
This is particularly true for public broadcasting (ÖRR), whose image among the population has been increasingly suffering in recent years.
A common accusation:
ARD
,
ZDF
and Co. are too left-wing and no longer report in a balanced way.
According to an Insa survey from summer 2023, only 34 percent of those surveyed considered the ÖRR to be “ideologically balanced”.
A team of researchers from the University of Mainz conducted extensive research into this and came to the conclusion that most German media tend to be left-wing.
This is how the media portrays parties © IPPEN.MEDIA data team, source: Maurer, Kruschinski and Jost.
“Is there something missing?
Diversity of perspectives in public news formats”.
University of Mainz (2024).
According to the study, Mercury reports the most balanced
In addition to the public ones, the study by the renowned Institute for Journalism at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz also looks at the largest private media companies in the country and examines the diversity of perspectives they each offer using the question “Is there something missing?”
One of the central results: The Munich Merkur (Merkur.de) reports the most balanced.
And that in two respects.
IPPEN.MEDIA is a network of diversity of opinions
Both the balanced Münchner Merkur and the left-liberal Frankfurter Rundschau are part of
IPPEN.MEDIA
, which aims to be a network of diversity of opinion.
The aim of
IPPEN.MEDIA
is to address people from all democratic camps in its reporting, to allow them to have their say and thus to offer readers the best opportunity to form their own opinions.
On the one hand, by analyzing over 11,000 articles, the researchers came to the conclusion that of all 47 media examined, the Munich Merkur provides the most balanced information about parties from both political camps - i.e. left and right of center.
This includes the fact that the Münchner Merkur, in contrast to other media, reports equally critically on both camps.
This has been evident for a long time, says study director and professor of political communication Marcus Maurer: “The Munich Mercury is always close to the middle in all studies and findings,” Maurer tells our editorial team.
Professor would like a media system that moves more towards the middle
In addition to pure party reporting, the Mainz media researchers also examined where the media fit in socio-politically.
The Frankfurter Rundschau,
for example, is
classified as a liberal-progressive and welfare state-oriented medium.
At the other end of the scale, i.e. particularly conservative-authoritarian and market-liberal, the opinion medium is called “
Tichys Insight
”.
Here too, the scientific study showed that the Münchner Merkur, alongside the
Welt
and the
Augsburger Allgemeine,
“reported the most balanced overall.”
With regard to the criticism of the ÖRR being “too left-wing”, the study comes to two conclusions.
Professor Maurer says: “The reporting in most media is rather progressive and welfare state-oriented.
Public broadcasting does not stand out as being 'too left-wing.'" The professor would still like to see a media system that moves more towards the center, but emphasizes that the German media landscape is not far away from that, despite its left-wing tendency.
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For the study, the Mainz research team examined the most important German newspapers, news programs and online articles for three months.
Contributions from media on the left (
Neues Deutschland, Junge Welt
) as well as on the right (
Junge Freiheit, Tichys Insight
) were also analyzed from March to May 2023.
Maurer and his team examined the content of reports, classifications of current events and how often politicians from different parties were mentioned.
In addition to the Münchner Merkur, the Frankfurter Rundschau (FR.de), which sees itself as a deliberately left-liberal medium, was also part of the investigation.
This claim was confirmed in the study.
“The Frankfurter Rundschau is one of the most progressive and social state-oriented media we have in Germany,” says Professor Maurer.