Germany's media regulator has revised its code on reporting whether crime suspects belong to an ethnic or religious group. The German Press Council, a voluntary, industry-run body, says information about a person's ethnicity shouldn't be published
unless there is a justified public interest in doing so. Previous guidance said such details should only be published if there was a link between a person's ethnicity or religion and the crime. Numerous German media outlets complained that
the old code was hard to interpret during a breaking news situation and that withholding such information left readers searching for it on questionable social media sites and stirred conspiracy theories of media cover-ups of migrant crimes.
|
