Lügenpresse on the right-wing beat: German journalists and their hostile sources

1 Introduction

Journalists across the globe are at risk. Whether economic pressures, political pushback, hostility experienced online or in person, reporters – even those not covering armed conflicts (Waisbord, 2019) – are vulnerable on many fronts. Although not a new phenomenon (Le Cam et al., 2021), efforts to undermine press freedom and journalistic autonomy are on an alarming rise, including in countries that rank high on press freedom advocates’ monitors (e.g., Committee to Project Journalists, 2024). As more countries experience autocratization and democratic backsliding (Jee et al., 2022; McDevitt, 2022; Sitter and Bakke, 2019), with citizens’ belief in democracy as the ideal form of governance waning, the normative, positive relationship between democracy and journalism (Christians et al., 2010; Gans, 2004; Nerone, 2013) is being challenged. This is certainly not a phenomenon unique to Germany or Europe. Institutional and individual attacks on journalists have existed and are in decline globally (Dad and Khan, 2020). While Africa has seen an increase in politically motivated attacks against journalists (Danso et al., 2025) and media workers in South Asia have similarly seen a decline in press freedom (Ahmed, 2025; Sriram and Verma, 2024), concerns over the safety of journalists in general and mental health risks in particular in the Global South (Chinnasamy et al., 2024) have grown. Especially investigative journalists, for example in Latin America, have been found to work under precarious conditions that require adjustments and countermeasures in their work (e.g., Márquez-Ramírez, 2022; Mesquita and de-Lima-Santos, 2023). Women in particular are increasingly vulnerable in the field (Shabbir et al., 2021). Many of the physical and verbal attacks that journalists have been experiencing, happen during demonstrations, political protests and, more recently, while covering right-wing organizations and parties. Online threats and harassment have become routine, especially for journalists on the populist beat.

This study asks how German journalists covering right-wing populism in general and the AfD specifically, experience this reality and how they adjust their reporting practices. It does so through the lens of media logic, arguing that right-wing organizations, politicians and parties function along a new media logic that journalists reporting on this beat are adjusting to. These reporters are an important, albeit fragile link between right-wing populists and audiences at-large. The issue is not just about journalistic autonomy (Löfgren Nilsson and Örnebring, 2016) but about controlling the narrative.

2 Media logic

In this study, I propose to view journalists’ responses to right-wing populism, through the lens of mediatization, the conceptual framework that encompasses how mass media interacts with and affects society and its institutions, from the personal level to the cultural and political (Hjarvard, 2014). Media logic, in this model (Altheide and Snow, 1979), includes professionalization, for example in news reporting and role conceptions of journalists as gatekeepers or watchdogs. Another element is commercialization, the imperative to generate revenue, audience attention and, consequently, to tell stories that attract readers and viewers. The final element is technology’s influence on production and distribution processes (Esser, 2013). For political actors mediatization has meant dependency on the prevailing media logic. Politics and politicians “self-mediatize” that is, they succumb to media logics and use strategic communication and public relations strategies to manage the media stage they are on (Esser, 2013). Yet, what happens when political actors create their own media logic through a system with its own professional norms, commercial goals and use of technological affordances? I argue that the populist media logic emerging in Germany directly competes with the existing media logic followed by journalists and editors cover right-wing populists. They do so through their social media presence and on sites that look like journalism but are, in fact, propaganda that also delegitimizes the news media (Conrad, 2024). The German press has thus far tailored its reporting about right-wing actors according to lessons learned during and after the Nazi era. While the dominant media logic has guided political actors to meet the values and expectations of the press, the affordances of social media have upended this balance. A renegotiation of political and news media logics, reminiscent of processes in countries experiencing a shift in both the media and the political environment (e.g., Mazzoleni, 2008) is taking place. For instance, in their study about populist communication in Latin America, Waisbord and Amado (2017) found that populist presidents use Twitter for top down communication, effectively replacing traditional media as a go-between, as it “offers presidents an opportunity for unobstructed, unmediated expression” (p. 1,342). Similarly, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro live-streamed speeches and avoided interviews with media representatives critical of him, taking advantage of the freedom to directly communicate with audiences through social media (Rothberg and Ferracioli, 2025), showing “how government communication under populism can potentially weaken democratic institutions” (p. 50). This creates and strengthens alternative, right-wing- friendly channels where direct and indirect criticism of traditional media gather momentum. India’s right-wing media, for example, has attacks on mainstream media built into its rhetoric (Bhat and Chadha, 2020; Chadha and Bhat, 2022). Hence, examples of competing media logics in countries that are under populist or authoritarian rule, inform the evolution of the prevailing media logic currently happening in Germany. The following provides contemporary and historical context for the situation in Germany.

3 The (lying) press under populist attack

Although Germany consistently ranks high on press freedom indices, German journalists reported 55 assaults in 2025. This does not include unreported incidents, a number Reporters without Borders assumes is in the triple digits (Reporter ohne Grenzen, 2026). Most hostile incidents have been reported by local journalists working in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) and in states in the western part of Germany where the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has made significant gains in the polls. While citizens surveyed in the former GDR express less trust in the news media than do citizens in the former Federal Republic of Germany (Pollak and Krüger, 2024), violence directed at reporters is certainly not limited to this part of Germany. Overall, journalists have experienced more assaults, more aggressive and hostile confrontations, attitudes and tactics, particularly during political rallies by right-wing organizations and at conspiracy-themed demonstrations (Reporter ohne Grenzen, 2024; ZDF, 2024).

A familiar refrain that journalists in Germany have been hearing is a reminder of the country’s past: Luegenpresse or lying press. The term, used to malign and discredit journalists, was widely used during the Second World War when the free press was effectively eliminated. The insult is a blanket attack on all media and is rarely a response to a particular incident (Koliska and Assmann, 2021). While most often heard at demonstrations or posted in comments on social media, the message, that journalists are liars, serves as a rallying cry that has helped undermine trust in the news media. Contributing to German journalists’ increasingly precarious sense of security is the accelerating radicalization – not just against the press – on social media platforms and chat groups (Schulze and Rieger, 2025), a development compounded by the loss of independent local news media outlets (Wellbrock and Maaß, 2024). The result is a digital gray area where the line between freedom of speech and criminal incitement is easily crossed and operationalized offline as violence against journalists (BKA, 2021). While attacks are most prevalent during in-person encounters, anti-press sentiment is systematically cultivated online. The political right-wing in Germany, further legitimized by the AfD’s success at the polls, has professionalized its communication strategies. Blogs, newsletters and news outlets, as well as a significant and growing presence on social media, are problematic not only for their political opponents, but for journalists as well. The press is frequently bypassed and often becomes part of the anti-institutional narrative in which “the media” is part of a conspiracy that undermines the will of the people (Jukschat, 2022). How journalists and news outlets respond to both physical and ideological threats from the right and how they cover a political party and movement that has declared them the enemy, may either feed into the anti-press narrative or strengthen journalists’ standing. Either way, their daily routine means interaction with sources that are often overtly antagonistic and keep a watchful eye on what they publish.

While the fronts seem clear, defining the boundaries of the beat has been complicated. Right-wing political activity includes a spectrum broadly categorized as right-wing populism. In the following, I sketch the contours of populism in the German context, as a beat and as part of the prevailing media logic.

4 Defining populism

Characterizing populism has not been an easy task and is best conceptualized as a variety of styles (Wettstein et al., 2019). Cas Mudde’s (2004) portrayal of the ‘populist Zeitgeist’ describes it as an ideology that polarizes society by dividing it into two opposing groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite,’ and that envisions politics as the will of the people (Mudde, 2004, p. 543). Three elements that, according to Jagers and Walgrave (2007), have been consistent over time and across various iterations of populism are its aim to appeal to the people, its anti-elite outlook and its “exclusion strategy” (p. 322; italicization in the original) of those not in agreement with the homogenous group it constructs. This tactical polarization is the foundation of right-wing ideology that is weaponized and operationalized by such groups and by politicians and political parties. It has become a political style (Jun, 2006; Moffitt and Tormey, 2014; Wettstein et al., 2019), as well as a communication style replicated in tabloids as an emotional carnival (Parks, 2019) and performance (Moffitt, 2016) that constructs and consequently exploits outrage. It remains, arguably, a slippery concept with boundaries difficult to recognize. This presents a challenge, especially to German journalists’ and news organizations’ efforts to cover the right-wing.

4.1 Right-wing populism in the German context

The populist threat that emerged in Germany following the Second World War was not immediately recognized by the German press. Right-wing groups and remnants of the Nazi regime lacked coherent theoretical and ideological underpinnings, making it difficult to grasp how they were organized (Jun, 2006). There was some debate over how to define them. Right-wing radicals, for instance, were not considered as dangerous as were right-wing extremists who were seen as an existential threat to democracy (Benz, 1980). This nuanced, discursive classification that was used to gauge the severity of a burgeoning movement, was negotiated just as the post-war German press was being reinvented. News outlets tended to err on the side of caution when covering right-wing extremists, populist parties and movements. For decades the threat was cautiously covered by a press that was tempered in its coverage of right-wing movements and parties (Hartleb, 2022; Scharf, 1993). The public consensus was that laws prohibiting hate speech, right-wing propaganda and the display of Nazi language and symbols were necessary and sufficient to prevent a reoccurrence of National Socialism (Reichel, 2007). This approach has been at the core of the prevailing media logic in Germany around coverage of right-wing organizations and parties.

Since Germany’s reunification in 1991, structural, economic and political inequalities and differences have surfaced and remain divisive topics. Opposition to immigration was, arguably, the catalyst for emboldened right-wing populists in Germany. The so-called PEGIDA¹ movement, an organized, anti-immigration protest rallying against “the Islamization of the West” grew in popularity among “ordinary citizens” in 2014 and 2015 (Dostal, 2015, p. 523; Koliska and Assmann, 2021). The AfD, already drawing in citizens disgruntled with Chancelor Angela Merkel’s politics, particularly regarding immigration, has since been riding the wave of discontent. In opposition to restrictions related to the COVID 19 pandemic, hundreds of angry citizens across, particularly in East Germany, broke assembly rules and met for group walks on Saturdays and Mondays. Right-wing extremists have likewise been instrumentalizing such sentiments, taking their combative rhetoric to social media platforms and messenger channels. After a slow start, right-wing blogs and news outlets began to proliferate (Maegerle, 2016; Pfeiffer, 2016) and, with the rise of the AfD, populist ideology can be found in a number of digital and print outlets (Gutsing, 2023; Jukschat, 2022). The role of the press in negotiating coverage of these polarizing groups is becoming increasingly complicated. Emboldened by its success, the AfD and right-wing populist groups now publish their anti-press rhetoric on their own, alternative sites. The message there is clear: mainstream news outlets and journalists who work for them are by default part of the ‘corrupt elite.’

5 The (media) logic of covering right-wing populists

Prior to the AfD’s electoral success and entry into parliament, the German press covered right-wing groups and activities as exceptions and outliers. The news media’s focus was not on ideology, but on hate crimes committed against foreigners or Germans with migration biographies. Driven by news values that prioritized crime stories, attention was distracted from the emerging network of right-wing extremists. Some argue that it may also have incentivized violent behavior by rewarding the perpetrators with media attention and publicity (Pfeiffer et al., 2002). The year 2000 saw a sharp increase in crimes committed by right-wing groups (Der Spiegel, 2001), a statistic that many outlets felt was important enough to cover. A new era had begun with this uptick in right-wing extremist violence and coverage (Hille, 2023; Pfeiffer et al., 2002).

With it came the fear that mainstream media outlets that had always been critical of the right, would end up complicit in spreading populism. The provocative, emotional and often simplified political communication style and anti-media messaging of the right resonates with the market demands and news cycles, giving right-wing populists free media exposure (Greven, 2016). If not amplified in this way (populism through the media), populist media outlets themselves will spread their message (populism by the media), and along with it a critique of the mainstream media (S. Braun et al., 2007; Engesser et al., 2017). Interviews with former leaders in the German right-wing scene, showed that they intentionally curate specific images to the mass media and purposefully deploy the image of journalists as enemies that are both influential and can be instrumentalized. Journalists covering the right that were interviewed for the same study avoided reporting in ways that could be interpreted as activist and insisted on adhering to the objectivity norm when reporting about right wing activism. At the same time, they spoke about their concern not to give the right wing a platform and acknowledged the challenge of foregrounding how dangerous the movement is while maintaining an objective tone (Baugut and Neumann, 2019). In the past, this cautious attitude meant that, with the exception of Axel Springer’s tabloid BILD Zeitung, German media outlets shied away from calling right-wing parties like the ultra-conservative party Die Republikaner (REP) a Nazi party (Art, 2007), and instead played with various terms from new-right, radical-right, national-liberal and populist (Klikauer, 2020). Arguably weighed down by history, German journalists feared mismanaging their gatekeeping responsibility by overrepresenting right-wing actors. In their roles as interpreters, they did not want populists to set their agenda, nor did they want to fall prey to tabloid populism (Krämer, 2014), “a form of journalism that panders to popular sentiments regarding the elite/people divide in an effort to maximize impact and appeal” (Wettstein et al., 2018, p. 480).

Media critics, editors-in-chief and journalists have publicly debated how to cover right-wing populism (e.g., Beuting, 2025; Haeming, 2023 Kurbjuweit, 2025;; Pieper, 2025). Disagreement over labels like populist and whether to include the Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) classification of the AfD as right-wing extremist (Deutsche Welle, 2025) in every story that mentions the party is ongoing. In their study of metajournalistic discourse among members of the German press about responses to right-wing populism Krämer and Langmann (2020) found a reluctance among journalists to define populism beyond describing some of its characteristics. Their criticism of media coverage was often directed at other outlets, and they assumed that their correct and successful approach would make an impact and uncover the AfD’s anti-democratic nature. The consensus was to strictly adhere to norms of objectivity, to be neutral and, hence to engage with the AfD, regardless of the journalist’s personal convictions or aversion against right-wing actors (Krämer and Langmann, 2020). Arguably, this reluctance to more aggressively report on the right-wing, is a somewhat ironic adherence to a media logic that foregrounds objectivity. Yet in practice, interactions with populist politicians have been contentious. When AfD representative Björn Höcke sat down for an interview public service broadcaster ZDF in September 2019, he got up and left in mid-interview, refusing to answer questions about his use of language reminiscent of national socialist rhetoric (ZDFheute Nachrichten, 2019). A 2023 interview with the same broadcaster began with the reporter introducing him as “authoritarian-nationalist-radical.” Höcke immediately responded with criticism but the interview continued without much pushback from the reporter allowing the AfD politician to present his ideas about, for example doing away with “inclusion” in schools, which raised concerns among media critics (Kraske, 2023).

This kind of confrontation is one of many examples of how right-wing politicians have benefited from the reigning media logic. Their continued appearance in talk shows, in interviews and as subjects of news stories, some fear, has helped normalize this kind of discourse (Schneider, 2022). Here, taboos are broken, disinformation abounds and the news media’s only recourse in counter-discourse, fact-checking, education and deplatforming (Zajak et al., 2026, p. 6). Normalization is driven and carried out by the broader public and through the existing media systems. Accordingly, the burden falls on news organizations to gatekeep and interpret these messages without compromising their professional norms, like objectivity and without neglecting their mission or amplifying right-wing propaganda.

Scholars have called for a departure from the dogmatic commitment to objectivity in the face of the right’s weaponization of journalists’ norms. For instance, when news outlet interpret, that is, select what information to exclude for reasons intrinsic to the journalistic process, they are often accused of omission and bias (Krämer, 2018). Others have suggested abandoning the observatorial role and instead advocating for the public interest, that is, for the maintenance of democracy with a more adversarial stance (Padovani, 2022). Emphasizing media ethics as opposed to objectivity and pointing out, in interviews, every false statement, is another best practice recommended as a way to remove “the oxygen of amplification” (Thompson and Sengul, 2025, p. 1). Supporters of right-wing parties that consider themselves the people in opposition to the media elite, would argue with this suggestion’s validity. Anti-press and delegitimization practices of right-wing politicians include attacks on news outlets, calling them unstable, not solid or part of an elite that works against the people’s interest. It is a strategy that turns journalists’ institutional logics against them (Panievsky, 2021; Van Dalen, 2021). This is a challenge particularly difficult for public service media whose mandate is to “take into account the principles of objectivity and impartiality of reporting, diversity of opinion and the balance of their offerings.” Hence, interviews with members of parliament and politicians belonging to a democratically elected party, even if classified as right-wing extremist by German intelligence, are part of public service media’s mandated responsibility: “Public and private broadcasting are committed to the free formation of individual and public opinion as well as to diversity of opinion” (die medienanstalten, 2024, p. 7). Since the AfD is outright anti-democratic and, ironically anti-press, it becomes difficult for public service media to exclude rhetoric that undermines democracy but does not break the law (Hien and Norman, 2023).

Covering the AfD complicates a usually straight-forward, albeit not always easy, balancing act. Adherence to the objectivity norm is often not recognized as the best way to handle events or interviews in which anti-democratic or hate speech is given a platform (Sehl et al., 2022). Following the public service mandate also means that news outlets often follow the agenda set by right-wing populists in the name of satisfying all viewers’ information preferences. They report excessively on outrage and fear-inducing topics like crime and immigration, resulting in “‘involuntary complicity’ between news media and populist movements based on the convergence of commercial media logic and populist communication style” (Kieslich and Marcinkowski, 2020, p. 484). This involuntary complicity and accommodation of media populism (Manucci, 2025) is not exclusive to public service media. Although research has shown that a degree of self-censorship, at least in the short term on social media, is happening among public service broadcasters (Wolleschensky and Sehl, 2025), interviews with a small number of German journalists working for commercial outlets have shown a more profound effect. They report feeling intimidated, pressured into changing what they cover, that is, reducing the amount of attention they pay to right-wing extremists and self-censorship. Importantly, they lament a lack of institutional support to alleviate their security concerns (Mangold, 2025). More consequential is the impact this work has on freelancers whose safety concerns often present an existential threat (Krell et al., 2025). This aligns with findings from research outside of Germany.

Criticism launched at journalists by populist politicians has been characterized as “soft censorship” (Panievsky, 2021, p. 2,137), especially when journalists remain passive, afraid of being perceived as subjective or activist. In effect, they hand over power to populist messengers, especially those propagating anti-media rhetoric. A study in four democratic countries in Europe, including Germany, found that the coverage of populism reinforces existing opinions, both in favor and in opposition to populist messages (Müller et al., 2017). Those with populist views tend not to visit legacy media sites, but hyperpartisan news (Stier et al., 2020). Party loyalty is managed on these sites and on AfD sites likes FreieWelt.net and Abgeordneten-Check.de (Klikauer, 2020). The party has a strong presence on TikTok and Telegram (Gattermann and Tulin, 2025), where dozens of right-wing groups run channels (Angenendt and Brause, 2024). On TikTok, as expected, the AfD replicates the fear-mongering messages that are part of its normal political discourse, without using any of the interactive features that characterize the platform (Classen et al., 2024). On their main site, AfD.de, there are links to a YouTube channel that serves as communication avenue between the party, the public and the media (Arzheimer, 2015).

How German journalists tasked with covering right-wing extremist groups and the Alternative für Deutschland, a populist party that has been designated right-wing extremist, cover their beat and uphold the norms and practices encoded in the dominant media logic is the question driving this study that asks, specifically:

• To what extent do German journalists that cover right-wing politics and organizations on the local, regional and national level experience hostility?
• How do they respond to these attacks?
• How are they adjusting reporting norms and practices?
• To what extent do their responses represent a defense against or an acceptance of the populist media logic?

6 Materials and methods

For this qualitative study, open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted with journalists whose beat explicitly included, in some cases exclusively, coverage of right-wing groups and the populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Interviews, while potentially “disruptive to the routine meaning making and situated action of daily life” (Blakely and Moles, 2017, p. 169), are particularly appropriate and productive when the subjects themselves are interviewers. In this case, the researcher is a former journalist from Germany, as are the participants. While this could mean a lack of necessary distance, in this case it helped build trust and allowed for in-depth, productive conversations and provided rich data, necessary for a nuanced understanding and interpretation of journalists’ experiences (Warren, 2001). As interviewer and co-constructer of knowledge (Roulston, 2010), sharing my positionality as a former journalist who has covered right-wing groups both in the United States and in Germany was a given and welcomed by participants. Transparency about my background and personal experience as it relates to a sensitive subject was crucial, as frameworks used by an interviewer are always constructed by their own experiences, perspectives and position in an institution (Pomerantz and Zemel, 2004; Tracy and Robles, 2010). This transparency extended to explaining to potential participants how they had been identified or who had recommended that I contact them.

In creating this purposive sample, an effort was made to include local, regional, national, online and print outlets as well as commercial and public service broadcasters. Previous coverage of incidents involving assaults against journalists was consulted, as were reports published by unions featuring journalists that met the criteria. Several participants were recruited during conferences where panelists addressed some of the issues relevant to this study. Aside from this convenience element, interviewees were also asked to recommend others in their network, adding a snowball element.

Several journalists preferred participating anonymously and, given the sensitive nature of their reporting, all are listed only by gender, region and platform, including whether their coverage area is local, regional or national (Table 1) and referred to in the findings in ways that protects their identities. Among the participants two work for commercial and four for public service broadcasters – two in radio and two in television – as well as print and online reporters. Thirteen participants work for a daily paper, two for a nonprofit online outlet. Two of the nine women are in leadership positions and, although no longer actively reporting in the field, were responsible for making decisions about reporter safety and standards for interviews and responses to hate-speech targeting them. Only one of the 23 participants, a woman, has a migration background. One participant is part of an organization that offers free security-services for freelance journalists, another also runs a hotline for journalists in crisis. Ten participants work for local outlets, ten for national and three for regional outlets. Two of the regional outlets are public radio stations and all four public television outlets were national.

Table 1. Participant and outlet characteristics.

Interviews were conducted with 23 participants and lasted between from 16 to 138 min. The shortest and longest interviews were outliers. The average length was 65, and median length was 63 min. The majority of participants (13) were in their 30s, one in their late 20s during the time of the interview. Four were in their 40s, four in their 50s and one in their early 60s. Most of interviews (18) were conducted between May and June 2024. Three interviews took place between March and June 2025; one of the interviews was part of another study and was conducted in September 2021; another followed in April 2022. Most of the 2024 interviews were in person, all others were done over Zoom. In all cases they were recorded once consent had been given and transcribed using NoScribe, a free, automated transcription tool that works locally and does not upload data to a server (kaixxx, 2025).

The interview guide was structured to invite open-ended discussion that is, an exchange and collaborative interaction designed to extract meaning (Gubrium and Holstein, 2012), following a responsive style (Rubin and Rubin, 2012, p. 7). Once transcribed the interviews were imported into MaxQDA, a qualitative data analysis software. The affordances of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis bring more efficiency and flexibility to the coding process (Chandra and Shang, 2019). In addition, by retaining the link between the transcript and audio files, it is possible to easily refer back to the original, recalling pauses, inflection and other relevant characteristics of the interaction, which allows for deeper insight into thought processes and emotions of participants (McLellan et al., 2003). All interviews and the analyses were conducted in German. Quotes, once selected for inclusion in the findings, were translated by the researcher with occasional assistance from an automated translation app.

Data analysis began with a general code book based on the interview guide and on memos written during the interview process. During a first round of reading and coding along deductive codes, inductive codes were added, allowing for a more granular analysis during subsequent readings (Appendix A). First codes were based on questions about participants’ first encounters with right-wing sources and topics, as well as definitions they assigned to “right-wing” and “AfD.” Further, general coding categories were: perceived challenges and risks, newsroom dynamics and editorial policy, journalistic approaches to the AfD/norms and practices and AfD communication and tactics. The author added inductive codes and, using memos written during this process, categorized and connected themes that emerged (Saldaña, 2014). These themes are threat perception, anti-media rhetoric and attacks, professional adaptation, and changing journalistic roles. Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2012, 2019) is especially useful for the discovery of themes and conceptual frameworks. Participant responses are treated as interpretative “interview talk” (Talja, 1999, p. 460). Applying a grounded theory approach, leaning on Charmaz and Belgrave (2012) and Glaser and Strauss (2017), allowed for the exploration of the interviews as texts to be interpreted and to give meaning to the participants’ experiences. The author was able to, through this process, to identify applicable theoretical approaches. Thematic saturation was reached after 20 interviews (Guest et al., 2006), yet three more interviews were conducted since appointments with participants had already been made.

7 Results

All journalists interviewed for this study have covered right-wing organizations, parties and events for several years on local, regional or national politics beats. Most had some experience in the field covering demonstrations; most routinely report about the right-wing scene and daily politics with a focus on the AfD. They have assessed threat levels and made adjustments in order to safely interact with their sources and with their audiences. Below I detail how they perceive and calculate the risks, ensure their safety, define and navigate the realities of their beat, including anti-media rhetoric and behavior, and how this affects their norms and role conceptions and their relationship with competing media narratives and practices from right-wing actors follows.

7.1 Threat perception

Are you afraid? This was a question none of the journalists interviewed answered in the affirmative. One recalled being fearful as a young local reporter but now, as a national newspaper correspondent, he rarely covers demonstrations and knows how to lock down his social media accounts. “You have to be a chameleon,” a Berlin-based correspondent said, adding that he does take cover behind the police at times. A public radio reporter echoed this by saying that he avoids looking like a journalist. One woman, a public service broadcaster on the national beat, is glad that she now rarely works in the field and remarked that her biggest fear was making a mistake in her reporting and not giving audience members the information they need to stop fascism. In the following I describe what some of the perceived threats, both physical and online are and how journalists are protecting themselves.

7.1.1 Physical threats

Political rallies and demonstrations were by far considered the most dangerous reporting venues. Most of the problematic encounters that participants spoke about happened during PEGIDA protests and, then during marches regularly held in opposition to Covid-19 regulations and, more recently at pro-Gaza rallies. Everyday items like walking sticks or umbrellas but also television crews’ gear, like tripods, have been hurled at several participants. There have been instances of extreme violence against camera crews, but most participants experienced threats akin to what one daily reporter described as: “Nothing more than someone poking a finger into my chest.” A few noted that a few extreme cases of colleagues being severely injured had made the rounds and served as warning but that they had not experienced anything that serious. Several participants mentioned that the tone has become rougher but that scenes like those in the early 2020s, when participants of the so-called “Monday walks” (Montagsspaziergänge) used umbrellas to block cameras and, at times, to chase reporters away, are now rare. A freelance television reporter noticed a difference between his experience as a VJ when he worked alone and when he started working for a public broadcaster. The size of the crew grew and with it the risk. They are now a target and more often subjected to hostile comments. Management in public service newsrooms required security escorts. Some reporters refused, calling it a kind of “military build-up.”

You just have to weigh the risks. There were situations that required security, like PEGIDA in Dresden. Not from the start, but if you knew you want to film what’s happening on the stage, you go into the crowd, then you know you need at least one security person who tells that random old men wielding his umbrella know that he needs to keep his distance.

(R16, m, freelance video journalist, public service)

Almost all the participants had decided, either on their own, or with their editors and colleagues, that nobody would go to a right-wing-related event alone. Although this commonsense consensus has become the norm, only a few participants said that this was a decision made on an institutional level. While journalists working for public service media outlets reported having a more official protocol, commercial outlets, whether broadcast or print, were less strategic and thoughtful about safety precautions. Reporters were left to make their own judgment calls about precautions. Especially for women, routines have drastically changed.

In the beginning it was a topic and event like any other. That has changed 180 degrees. There is no topic that requires this much need for coordination. Sometimes I plan out every minute. It’s not like in the past where we’d go and see what we find. Now it’s: how are you getting there, where will you spend the night, how long will you be there? … We coordinate the coverage, security, how we approach sources and when we stop asking and leave if they just won’t respond. Everything has changed.

(R12, woman, local daily)

A notable exception is the regional public radio correspondent who works alone and just tries “not to stand out.” He works with very little technology: “I am not recognizable as a journalist. I don’t have huge equipment with me and when I get the feeling that the situation is difficult, I just don’t take my microphone out.” (R3) Nearly half of the participants said that they no longer use a notebook when out in the field. They use their phones to take notes and record.

Between the Lines is a volunteer-run organization that accompanies and protects freelance reporters who don’t have the institutional support they need in the form of security or gear. Their strategy: two volunteers, dressed to blend into the crowd, join the reporter and cover them. They ward off and distract potential threats, talk to anyone who tries to attack or stop the reporter from doing their job. They also keep statistics about attacks that they share with Reporters without Borders. The numbers, one of the founders said in the interview, have dropped. He believes that the police may have become more aware of the problem and are doing a better job protecting journalists; Importantly, he thinks that fewer journalists cover these meetings. Other journalists interviewed support the last point, one saying that he doesn’t want to “chase every stick” the AfD throws at him. R2, a woman in leadership at a local paper in East Germany, said the increased potential for violence has brought some positive changes. The police, she explained, is willing to protect reporters more than they had just a few years ago: “They’ve been instructed that they are there for our protection and have moved away from this attitude towards us that was like: well, if you wouldn’t come to these events, you wouldn’t be putting yourselves in such a dangerous situation.”

Still, the danger persists: A woman editor-in-chief (R15) once had to interrupt a livestream when she saw that her reporter, a young woman, was being threatened by the crowd. She finds it difficult to pinpoint who is at fault: “It’s such a diverse group that comes together to these demonstrations. My theory is that the ones heating things up, those that are so ready to use violence, probably come from the fringes of the right-wing spectrum.” It is, she says, difficult to explain such nuances to her readers. Several reporters make the distinction between AfD and extremist, or “Skinhead” (Glatzköpfe) gatherings with the latter considered more perilous than the former. While an event organized by right-wing extremists can easily turn violent, party conventions are, in general, harmless. Yet there are exceptions that challenge reporters’ intentions to remain as neutral as possible.

Sometimes I lose my cool journalist role, where you’re the hardened observer who doesn’t really care about it on a personal level. That’s what happens to me, sometimes in the evening, after a day at a party convention, when some backbenchers start to shout some hardcore stuff. Then I sit there and think: where even are we, what’s the point of all this?

(R19, public broadcaster, now commercial)

In their descriptions of the perceived threat levels and the measures they were taking, what surfaced was how excluded these journalists feel by their sources. The moniker “lying press” is more than a trope. It is a dog-whistle that affects all participants’ work routines and roles. The perceived threat at right-wing events that journalists described, came as a direct consequence of their visible role as reporter. Physical threats were interpreted as intimidation efforts that are precursors to exclusion from events and, in effect, a form of censorship.

7.1.2 The “lying press” as target

“I’ve stood in front of a crowd of 15,000 people chanting “Luegenpresse” in my direction. And I was like: do they mean me?” recalls R11, a national daily correspondent based in Berlin. He was covering a rally and remembers receiving emails that he calls “unpleasant.” He and most of his colleagues made a point of emphasizing that none of the anti-press hostility intimidated them. Participants seemed to accept it as part of the beat and part of the reality of being a journalist in this political climate. A regional public radio correspondent has witnessed and experienced hostility while doing “person on the street” interviews, not even related to a political event. “You have to keep in mind that people are at best skeptical of the media and many see us as the enemy.” (R3) He has been insulted by passers-by; a colleague has been spat on while conducting an interview. It has been a common occurrence, not just since PEGIDA, that protesters block the cameras, surround camera crews and, in a few cases knock a camera down and destroy other recording equipment. The lessons and consequences affect print journalists as well: “You don’t enter the demonstration but stay at the perimeter. If you have to move closer to hear speeches or take pictures, you risk getting pushed around, mobbed or attacked” (R10, man, national daily).

Most participants wanted to establish normal journalist-source relationships, although their aversion to right-wing ideologies led a few to avoid direct contact. A few local journalists spoke about working at keeping the communication channels open. One reporter in particular (R1) was adamant about it. He is so well known in the community that he cannot afford to become an outcast. During our interview, while scrolling through dozens of right-wing Telegram groups that he follows using a pseudonym, he received a call from a local politician. He is clearly accepted and walks a fine line. He too spoke about the wall that the AfD had built to keep the news media out. Whether among right-wing extremists or moderate AfD party functionaries, whether local, regional or national, the stigma of belonging to the “lying press” is ever-present. One participant, editor at a local daily experiences it on social media in comments responding to their news articles. “That’s where the right-wing bubble strikes. System press, the usual stuff. I don’t think anybody even lets the newsroom know and I think that’s because the hardcore AfD supporters don’t read us anyway. They’re somewhere else.” (R6, man, local daily).

7.1.3 Gatekeeping the “lying press”

The anti-press ideology is pervasive, according to almost all participants. The editor-in-chief of a local paper (R15) talked about giving a talk about journalism at a local school: “The students sat across from me with their arms folded and said: the only truth is on Telegram and we know exactly that you are lying to our faces. And the teacher was very supportive of that opinion.” This is a view shared by many participants: that public opinion is being shaped by content producers far removed from their newspapers and programs. Another editor-in-chief at a local paper is frustrated:

There is a lot going on via Telegram and other channels, so that the question is which of those who are not yet die-hard AfD supporters but somehow turn to them every now and then, how do we reach them at all? How can we tell them that the world is not as one-dimensional as you are led to believe, by all these people who have constructed their very own media world around the AfD, a fake news world.

(R2, woman in leadership, local daily)

Conditions that R23, a freelance investigative journalist who runs a hotline for journalists in crisis noted with some sarcasm, are nearing those in the United States where journalists are excluded from, for instance, the White House or the Pentagon: “What’s happening in the AfD milieu is the same. At party conventions they stick the press in a room behind a barrier. There’s no electricity, no coffee, no water. It fits the lying-press narrative that they cultivate.” The consequence, for many, is that they no longer cover conventions where they are not welcome. The consensus among participants was that the communication strategies and structures that the AfD and adjacent organizations have created, brings with it new rules of engagement and alters the logic by which news value is assessed. Yet this is a luxury, that local journalists cannot afford.

7.1.4 Local journalists on the frontline

Local reporters expressed being more vulnerable because they are often personally known to their readers, many of them AfD voters. One reporter (R8) described how two Neonazis visited his private residence and later posted a picture of the street sign online as a threat. Local reporters differed in how they spoke about the need to bridge the gap between voters, their readers and the right-wing content producers. A big concern was not knowing enough about events since they were not being included. One participant expressed this need to “get ahead of things.” He cites the example of a town in his area with a population of 300 that was chosen as venue by the AfD for an event. On that day 500 people arrived in town. His readers, the local journalist says, should not be reading about this event the next day, but before it happens. If they find out after it happened, he says, “we have not fulfilled our journalistic duty.” The proximity to the readers who know him, his familiarity with the local politicians and theirs with him, is a territory he and many of his local reporter colleagues are fighting over.

Local reporters, especially in the eastern part of Germany, many of them from the former GDR now working for media companies from and based in western Germany, struggle to convince editors at headquarters about the urgency of telling stories from the local perspective. Since press relations with the right-wing parties are unreliable and reporters from mainstream outlets are not welcomed, local reporters especially rely on telling stories about people and about the consequences of right-wing policies. It is a hard sell and, when the AfD is successful at the polls, these usually under-resourced communities are inundated with reporters from national outlets. R1, the well-connected local reporter from a daily in a former East German state, sounded bitter when he spoke about how, with few exceptions, public and commercial broadcasters feigned interest, used his sources and left. This familiar scenario of journalists parachuting into communities hits local journalists especially hard. They must repair scorched earth and hope that the visitors did not add to the “lying press” narrative.

7.2 Norms

The preceding sections described some of the adjustments journalists and newsrooms were making in their reporting routines. For instance, they obscure their identities and profession, hide their gear and use only their phones to record and take notes. Several participants noted that they had made mistakes in the past. A common opinion was that newsrooms had treated the AfD as a phenomenon they were curious about and suspended critical inquiry until it was too late. There was confusion, several said, about how to cover this party, let alone what to call them. One local reporter regretted that he focused too much on the party’s views on family, on their conservative agenda without digging deeper into their ideology and ties to right-wing radicals. Most newsrooms referred to them as “Euroskeptics,” reported about economic policies they were promoting, and labeled them as populist, a comparatively benign label. A local reporter for a local daily (R18) had been reporting about hardcore right-wing populists and had to learn what it means when a party turns out to be a right-wing party that has more ties to those extremist groups that she had been writing about. They had many discussions in her newsroom about terminology: “The question was always: is it a populist party or right-wing populist, or a right-wing party? Was does “right” even mean?” The discussion, she said, was ongoing, with no clear policy.

The newsrooms included in this study have been continually debating and adapting their approach to interviewing right-wing populists and members of the AfD. Some hope to expose inconsistencies (R1). Others prefer to avoid direct interviews, believing they would be offering the right a platform without informing the public or because they don’t want any contact with right-wing actors at all and prefer doing stories about the people affected by the AfD’s policies or who are victimized by right-wing actors (R5, R20). Five of the participants in this study are members of the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, a network of newsrooms across Germany. They have stated that they no longer conduct verbatim interviews with AfD politicians, arguing it provides “no journalistic added value,” as did several other participants who work for daily papers. Television interviews are a more complicated matter. The interviewees that worked either for broadcasters or included video in their reporting said they now avoid live interviews. Public service media are an exception with their “Summer Interviews” in which politicians from all parties are interviewed live. A freelancer for a public service broadcaster remembered a discussion during an editorial meeting where the question was raised about dropping live interviews because live factchecking was too difficult. He was appalled when the result of the discussion was, essentially, to just keep doing what they had been doing. This meant a team of five who fact-checked live and would tell the interviewer through his earpiece what they had found. A better option, he said, would be to abandon live interviews and embed graphics with fact checks over the pre-recorded interview. Regardless of what we do, he said, politicians will “just lie to you. I just don’t think we’ve developed a strategy for this.” (R16, man, freelance, public service).

Many print and online news outlets have traditionally allowed politicians to submit written responses to questions or to authorize interviews prior to publication, essentially giving them editorial power. This practice has been all but abandoned. In fact, the value of interviews with politicians on the right was unanimously discredited. Rather than engage with them and, as some participants indicated, pretend to be objective, the primary goal of interaction with their right-wing sources is not to defeat them but to explain the nature of the party and their goals.

7.3 Roles

“It’s not the job of journalists to change the political power relations. That’s the job of the other parties and that’s something we can demand, but it’s not on us to keep the AfD small.” (R17, man, national daily). The local reporter scrolling through the Telegram channels he follows, no longer wants to expose the right-wing extremists in his town. The impact, he knows, is minimal. He is either preaching to the choir or drawing unwelcome attention as member of the “lying press.” Many journalists covering this scene, have been pondering their role in protecting democracy, some rejecting the burden, while others felt it was time to reclaim the news media’s role. One such response, albeit short-lived, came from the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). Their free newsletter, Democracy Radar (Demokratie-Radar) was launched in 2023 with the aim to provide focused coverage on the state of German democracy (Sternberg, 2023). The journalists assigned to the newsletter were regulars of the right-wing extremism beat. Two of the five members cover state politics in Saxony, two are national political reporters in Berlin and one covers local politics in Göttingen, a city in Lower Saxony close to the border of Thuringia where the AfD has made significant electoral gains. One goal was to bring more East-West perspectives into their stories, one of the reporters on the beat in Saxony said, adding that they never really defined democracy, assuming all of them knew what it means.

For us it’s important to ask: who actually makes democracy in this country? What kind of people are committed to social coexistence and to the functioning of democracy? And in our stories, we introduce people who do that. So that’s a relatively wide range, because democracy is such a chewing gum term. It could be about a theater director who deals with politics … someone who starts an initiative for more diversity or political literacy in rural areas. (R13, woman, local daily)

One of her colleagues makes the point that they do not consider themselves “big warriors for democracy” but rather try to point out who democracy’s enemies are. He described the case of a local school that decided to rescind their invitation to a representative of the AfD on a panel for members of all parties running for election. His research had shown that the representative was part of a Nazi network in Lower Saxony. “We do not feel obligated to stay neutral when we see efforts to hollow out democracy, as the AfD is currently doing. They don’t belong on a panel like that” (R8).

When interviews were being conducted for this study, the newsletter had nearly 5,000 subscribers. One Berlin-based contributor acknowledged that it felt like “preaching to the choir” and that they realized they were writing for the political elite and had, essentially, little impact. They ceased publication of the newsletter, and all five reporters continue on their regular beats, covering local politics, extremism and the AfD. A local reporter in Saxony no longer expects to make an impact. She explained: “We are not gatekeepers anymore.” She describes herself as an activist in her decision to return from Bavaria to her hometown in Saxony with a mission to educate readers who were voting for right-wing populist politicians. This, she explained, turned out to be naïve. Today her positionality is expressed through story selection. Reporting, against perhaps popular demand, about a Christopher Street Day parade in town and emphasizing the right-wing’s opposition, is her way of shining a light on the political situation. This differs from political coverage that has been mapping right-wing networks or exposing right-wing opinions in exposés that, she says “haven’t changed anything.”

There was a surprising consensus among all participants about the role that journalists play in preventing right-wing ideology from doing harm to Germany’s democracy. These ideals were not reserved for public service media with a clear mandate, but were also embraced by journalists covering local, regional and national news regardless of funding model. Although differences exist in how to protect reporters in the field – a distinction that may be driven by available resources or concerns about liability – concerns about surviving and reporting as usual in an environment that has built into its narrative a disdain for the press, were shared by all. Public service media journalists were more conservative about giving voice to all politicians yet pushed back against management for perhaps giving too much airtime to politicians classified as AfD. Among all reporters, those working in local newsrooms were most in touch and in conflict with the restrictions imposed on them in their daily reporting routines, aware of the fact that they are recognizable and easily found and risk exclusion. Yet all maintained a strong convictions about the need to remain critical and push back against rhetoric and actions that are anti-democratic.

8 Discussion

One of the questions this study asks is whether journalists’ responses to the challenges and threats coming at them from right-wing actors, represent a defense against or an acceptance of and adjustment to a populist media logic. The realization that traditional media outlets no longer carry the same weight or have the same impact as they did before the digital age, is not new. Audiences are fragmented and curate their media diets according to their tastes and convictions. In the Global South populists and right-wing actors and parties have made use of this new reality, turning social media platforms into sites of violence against journalists (Harlow et al., 2023), provoking, for instance in Latin America, where populism has gained traction in the past decades, renewed discussion about the relationship between journalism and democracy (Waisbord, 2013). They also capitalize on the affordances of social media, using them to construct and spread their image and messages without news media intermediaries (Waisbord and Amado, 2017). This allows authoritarian state actors to prime audiences for limits to press freedom, by discursively and symbolically attacking the news media through their own communication channels (Ozawa et al., 2024). Likewise, in the United States, Altheide (2026) argues, as he writes about Donald Trump and the rise of fascism in the U.S., the media logic of the digital age, exploited by Trump, paved the way for a responsive audience and electorate: “The media environment and new information technologies that are personal, visual, and instantaneous were foundational for audiences to be receptive to Trump’s nationalist slogans, derogatory epithets, memes, and politics of fear” (p. 5). Digital media and social media platforms bring with them “new dynamics in the mediatization process” (Kuşhan, 2026, p. 142). The health of a democracy hinges on an understanding of the evolving, mutually dependent relationship between political actors and the media (p. 147), especially when these actors are anti-democratic and, importantly, anti-media. Yet in today’s media environment there is little room for resource-starved news outlets to compete against the barrage of alternative news that often does not look like propaganda but like legitimate news. While the prevailing media logic positions the press in a position of relative power (Altheide, 2016) outlets remain dependent on political content, political actors no longer need the press to spread their message. Complicating matters is the increasing professionalization of political parties’ public relation campaigns. Right-wing extremists in Germany have created a network of channels on messenger apps like Telegram that is hard for reporters to penetrate. Political reporting is rarely aimed at the general public. Instead, it is meant to sway policy makers in the hopes that a kind of discursive trickle-down effect would influence public opinion and make an impact. Arguably, journalists on the right-wing beat are political reporters. Their goal, according to the prevailing media logic, is to expose threats to democracy originating from, in this instance, right-wing extremists and the AfD, a party designated as, in parts right-wing. If not decision-makers, then audiences should heed these warnings and, in an ideal scenario, take steps to defend democracy. By all accounts, this formula is broken. Not only are many of the decision makers in step with right-wing political actors, but the media diets of the citizens that could affect change, consist of the propaganda that right-wing actors are now so professionally spreading on their own sites and on channels like Telegram and TikTok.

The participants in this study are trying to find a way to uphold and, in some cases, defend the traditional media logic. They are being hampered in their reporting by threats of violence and online harassment and prevented from covering events and denied access to information. Since right-wing populists, as several participants asserted, use the limelight of live interviews to lie, unencumbered, they too are eliminated as reliable sources. The reality for German reporters tasked with informing the public about right-wing radicals, extremist groups and political parties, consists of a media environment that forces their hand. They resort to undercover reporting as they work without notebooks and with smartphones as recording devices, essentially deprofessionalizing their work. A bit of good news is that, being denied access to sources and events, newsrooms now focus on more people-centered stories. Nevertheless, they have been forced into a corner and no longer control the narrative. It has shifted to digital platforms where professional journalists are enemies of the people and easily dismissed as members of the “lying press.” The evolving media logic that news outlets in Germany adhere to is dictated by right-wing populists that have successfully convinced the public that journalists are part of the corrupt elite and enemies of the people.

A limitation of this study is its lack of diversity. Only one of the participants had a migration background. Her perspective was unique in that she investigates crimes against Germans with migration backgrounds committed by right-wing extremists. A study that includes the experiences and perspectives of journalists, already vilified as liars, with different identities, would add an important layer to scholarship about the ways in which right-wing populism is covered. Future research on this topic could also explore news stories produced by reporters covering the right and the AfD, for instance with a longitudinal study documenting the evolution of coverage as the party grows. Some reference was made in this paper to the East/West divide in Germany. Exploring how ownership, location and identity play into the ways in which journalists report about right-wing populism is an important avenue for future research.

Despite these limitations, this study makes a contribution to the ongoing discussion and scholarship around the mediatization of political communication and media logics in societies with populist actors and rhetoric that is anti-media and incites violence against journalists. German journalists covering this movement, this study shows, are trying not to succumb to “soft censorship” (Panievsky, 2021, p. 2,136), but to carve out a way that allows them to adhere to the norms dictated by the prevailing media logic without surrendering to the populist media logic that right-wing actors are trying to impose.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Gabriel Bayarri Toscano, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain

Reviewed by: Tabe Bergman, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China

Temple Uwalaka, University of Canberra, Australia

Footnotes

¹Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes [Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West]