New York Times Article on ‘Anti-Immigration’ March in Germany Doesn’t Interview Single Person There

In the Tuesday print edition of The New York Times, an article appeared [1] on A11 about the “anti-Islam” and “anti-immigration rally in Germany” that took place in Dresden on Monday and, in addition to trashing their position, reporter Melissa Eddy failed to interview or quote any of the over 20,000 demonstrators. 

Over course of the 650 word plus article, Eddy instead included quotes from Germany’s justice minister, a spokesman for the city of Leipzig, Chancellor Angela Merkel, a European Parliament member from “the rightist Alternative for Germany party” and an excerpt of “a declaration” from the group organizing the protests.

In much the same many that CBS went after the rally on Monday [2], Eddy fretted that such demonstrations “have raised questions that have become increasingly polarizing and politicized” pertaining to “whether Germany will ever live up to its open-arms ideals and accept a growing number of refugees, as well as those descendants of immigrants who have been here for generations.”

Only in the 10th paragraph does Eddy even bring up the legitimate points that the tens of thousands of German protesters have been trying to make: 

The marches have become a platform for Germans who feel sidelined by mainstream politicians, who they claim have gone too far in making their country attractive to foreigners at their expense. They point to cultural differences, such as requiring women to wear head scarves in public and prohibiting girls from taking part in coeducational sports classes, as indications of a refusal of many Muslims to integrate into German society.

Similar rhetoric describing the event appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) during Monday’s All Things Considered. Host Melissa Block interviewed [3] correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, who was in Dresden for the event and compared those raising concerns about the spread of Islamic extremism as a separate way of life in Germany with the Nazi’s hatred of Jewish People.

“We are the people is what they chant, which sounds unfortunately very much like the sort of thing one heard during the Nazi era,” proclaimed Nelson.

Further, NPR also followed the NYT in having zero interviews with any of the demonstrators during the three-minute-and-54-second segment but instead was soley a discussion between Block and Nelson.