Freedom of the press
Fewer attacks on reporters – but the climate remains harsh
The most dangerous places for media professionals in 2023 were political gatherings such as party events, demonstrations or protests. photo
© Christoph Soeder/dpa
Kicks, punches, hits with torches and tractor blockades: journalists continue to be regularly victims of aggression in Germany. A new report lists the most dangerous regions.
The number of attacks on journalists in Germany has declined significantly in the past year – but according to the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), there is no reason to give the all-clear. For 2023, RSF documented 41 attacks on media workers. In 2022 there were 103 attacks. For comparison: in 2019, before the Covid pandemic, 13 were recorded.
“During the pandemic, the number of attacks on reporters skyrocketed. Our review of the past year also shows that this trend has not yet completely receded,” says the RSF report “Close-up Germany”. A new aggressive phenomenon is tractor blockades against German media companies.
“In Germany, an increasingly anti-press sentiment has spread in recent years,” is the conclusion of the human rights organization. “Last year, reporters were again beaten, their equipment destroyed and they received massive threats online.” The new year didn’t start well either: on the sidelines of a demonstration in Leipzig, a journalist was the victim of a brutal physical assault.
Farmers prevent newspapers from being delivered
“We are also observing a dangerous new type of aggression: farmers recently blocked the delivery of newspapers in several federal states with tractor blockades and dung heaps,” explains RSF board member Michael Rediske. “This shows that the freedom to report independently in this country is not only threatened by attacks against individual media professionals. Dissatisfaction with the alleged lack of coverage of farmers’ protests is apparently enough to further lower the inhibition threshold for attacks on press freedom.”
Reporters Without Borders also recorded the ways in which journalists were mistreated: “The most common in 2023 were kicks and punches or hits with objects such as torches or drumsticks. These were considered attacks if they actually damaged the bodies or equipment of journalists Media workers have also had equipment snatched from them, thrown to the ground, pelted with sand and stones and, in one case, smeared with feces.”
There were particularly many attacks in Saxony
Most of the 41 attacks verified for 2023 – two hacker attacks cannot be assigned geographically – occurred in Saxony (12), followed by Bavaria (6), Berlin (5), North Rhine-Westphalia (5), Lower Saxony ( 4), Hamburg (2), Hesse (2), Rhineland-Palatinate (1), Thuringia (1) and Schleswig-Holstein (1).
The most dangerous places for media professionals in 2023 were political gatherings such as party events, demonstrations or protests. 32 of the 41 cases were counted here. Reporting around conspiracy ideology or right-wing extremist gatherings was once again particularly hostile to the press: the majority of attacks took place here in 2023, with 18 cases, as RSF documented.