Compared with MDM 2011 (Marcinkowski & Donk, 2011), the focus of what is understood as internal pluralism has diversified. Political pluralism is still an important issue, but there is also a more social understanding of pluralism. The interviewees showed a growing awareness of the stratification and rising heterogeneity of society – culturally, politically, socially, and demographically. One journalist self-critically assessed the lack of cultural diversity in their editorial units:
I don’t think [we are] diverse enough. And that applies to almost all groups and aspects that can be imagined. […] We are not as colourful as a society. We are still very West German, bourgeois, (no longer) completely male.
This awareness can be underpinned by current research, indicating that only about 6 per cent of editors-in-chief have a migration background, and even if so, their roots are typically in the EU or neighbouring countries. The number of journalists with a migration background is estimated to be even less than that (Vassiliou-Enz, 2020).
How many German-Turks or German-Italians […] are there [in our reporting]? Not so many. […] It is also because not many are in leading positions in society – and a large part of our reporting is about the actors. And there we are the mirror of society.
Standardised procedures to ensure internal pluralism do not exist. Interviewees state that editorial meetings are usually a formal procedure to discuss political standpoints of a story and to ensure internal pluralism is safeguarded. If single measures are in place, they usually have been established by the management:
We started top-down from the editor-in-chief to say that when we do vox-pops, please take care that it is not always just the representative ladies and gentlemen in fancy coats, but that it can also be other people, also […] people who may speak German with an accent.
However, as print media in Germany are “ideological enterprises”, they are allowed to ask their journalist to adhere to a certain political or ideological line, like Axel Springer AG media (Bild).
With the recent entrance of right-wing parties in the German parliament, Die Zeit established a new format to address democratic debate in controversial debates, like Deutschland spricht. Journalists match two citizens with fundamentally opposing political positions and moderate the conversation. These two sides of the controversy are covered in personalised stories in the print and online version of the weekly.
Under these conditions, a journalist of the news magazine Der Spiegel pointed out that political pluralism is sometimes a challenge. Covering an interest group also means granting them attention, although the drivers behind these interests are not always obvious at first glance. News media are hence in danger of becoming instrumentalised by these drivers.
