Germans desert mainstream media due to russophobia:

GERMANS DESERTING
MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN
DROVES DUE TO
ANTI- RUSSIA PROPAGANDA:

The US and UK media have been hugely biased in their coverage of Russia, but German media has been far, far, worse, to the point which strains credulity.  Now it turns out that part of the reason is CIA fiddling with German media outlets.  Coming on the heels of the Snowden revelations, this has Germans seriously ticked-off.  Here's the latest revelation from observers in Germany. They call it the Ulfkotte-effect (see previous post on this- "Je suis CIA"). And it's beginning to resemble an avalanche. Since the publication of Udo Ulfkotte's “Gekaufte Journalisten“ in September – now a #1 Amazon bestseller, in which he charges that the CIA regularly bribes top German journalists, himself included, – German readers' disaffection towards their mainstream media appears to have crossed a point of no return. Sales of newspapers and magazines have fallen everywhere, not just in Germany. But this is different. This is a boycott that is affecting web traffic. Germans are steering clear of mainstream media websites. Many Germans have not been too shy to announce their intention on social networks. Some have uploaded videos calling for a boycott on YouTube. Others have created groups calling for the same on Facebook.  

The other visible result of reader disaffection has been that throughout September the number of unique visitors to six major German newspapers and magazines was falling steadily. In October, it simply sank. Yet up until early summer these same websites had been generating a large and stable amount of traffic. This is an unprecedented trend, and one that is wholly distinct from the fall in newspaper sales generally. The graphs below show Google analytics provided by Alexa, a company that specialises in specialised analytics for the web:

 As can be seen on these graphs, there was a massive drop in circulation in October.

The Spiegel's infamous “Stoppt Putin Jetzt” July 29 cover apparently played a key role in incensing public opinion. An official readers' complaint against Der Spiegel's cover was upheld in August by the German Press Council. The latter ruled that the pictures of MH17 victims on the cover had been “instrumentalised in the context of a political statement.”

Germany's print media was warned even before that, on April 28, when Cicero, a leading German monthly, published a column titled: “Pride after the Fall”. The captions read: “Newspapers die. The reason: they go against their readers. The current Russia reporting is an example. That's not the way to engage with readers". The author, Alexander Kissler wrote: “Every quarter the newspapers sector grieves. This is when plummeting circulation figures are released. The curve travels from top left to bottom right, in fact it is not a curve anymore, but a straight line, unstoppable on its way to Zero.“

German media was quick to go on an offensive against Russia over the Ukraine crisis, but just as quickly found itself on the defensive against its readers. Now, after a further worsening of circulation figures during the spring, web traffic has declined as well. And it still looks like just the beginning. Der Spiegel and the others seem to have picked the wrong side in the propaganda war against Putin and Russia, and are now suffering the consequences in their circulation figures.