Media issues: Germany

1. In Germany I would rate it with 8. Generally we have freedom of press and journalists can publish nearly anything. But depending on the topics journalists could face danger when investigating e.g. radical scenes. Additionally German authorities might restrict access to certain information or make it hard to get them.
2. Most media in Moldova and Ukraine is owned by wealthy and often influencial politicians, so that media follows a certain narrative. Journalits can work more or less freely, when follow the political agenda. Nevertheless there are more independet news and TV programmes, which are often more consumed online as print media isn´t that popular in these countries (or at least not amongst young people). However many free lance journalits try to publish their texts or photos on international platforms.
3. For German and world affairs I often use the online platforms of German overregional newspapers as well as the radio Deutschlandfunk and for regional news about Berlin-Brandenburg I often listen to local radio stations. To get more information about the post-Soviet world I follow some English online magazines like The Calvert Journal & Post Pravda Magazine or German news projects like dekoder, Novastan or Ukraine Verstehen.
4. Social media helped that more news are consumed due du subscription to following of different sites or persons, but also made our attention span smaller. I am actually happy that in Germany we still learn in school how to read a newspaper and appreciate a traditional newspaper. Even though printed issues are going down, it is quite in common to read your favoured newspaper online. I also do this and check reguarly „Zeit online“ or „Süddeutsche Zeitung online“. Nevertheless from time to time I like to buy a printed newspaper for the weekend or if there is a special issue. Most likely social media will even grow bigger and take over traditional media. But I still hope that at least in Germany we keep on the tradition of reading traditional media on paper.
5. So far I think I haven´t fallen for fake news. Generally the media I consume is trustworthy. If I have some doubts or I want to fact check certain information than I would just check other newspapers, espcially foreign English-speaking newspapers. I don´t know if the whole media can be trusted, but there are for sure some favoured journalists I know and follow (mostly correspondents in Eastern Europe).