Immigrants are underserved by Germany’s mainstream media

“You can’t study”

When I was 15 years old, I came to Germany from Turkey as a Kurdish refugee child. I didn’t speak much German, but I wanted an education. I remember my German teacher telling me: “Nalan, you can’t speak German. Your parents have no money. You can’t study. Besides, you’ll probably get married after school, like all Turkish girls do. Why do you want to study?”

Her response broke my heart, but not my drive. This wasn’t the first time I succeeded in the face of hearing no.

I went on to learn German, study political science and work at my university’s radio station. At that time, the Turkish program of the public broadcaster WDR was holding a radio competition. Since I had learned how to edit audio on my campus radio station, I submitted a report. I won first prize and the editorial team offered me the opportunity to work for them as a freelance journalist. That’s how I got into journalism.

At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of disinformation was spreading in the Turkish community in Germany, which is the country’s largest immigrant community. As a native Turkish speaker and reporter at Deutsche Welle, I pitched an idea to my boss: Let’s start doing news in Turkish. He said no, it was unnecessary. So instead I launched my own YouTube channel and started making news in Turkish. Shortly afterwards, I lost my job.

But my YouTube channel took off.

The German government and other media outlets reached out to collaborate on stories. I made educational videos in Turkish in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, SPIEGEL, Bayrischer Rundfunk, Berliner Zeitung and ze.tt magazine.

I reach 32,000 subscribers on YouTube from my living room. There I have interviewed the candidate for chancellor and then finance minister Olaf Scholz. That interview opened the door to another interview with the Turkish opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

My work has an impact on the people in Germany’s Turkish community. My videos about the elections have informed the community not only about their right to vote, but also about the parties so that they can make informed choices. Because an uninformed population is a danger to democracy. I believe this is one of the reasons why some Turks vote for the far right party AfD. Here is my video about it in English:

Another project educated them about climate change, as there is hardly any information about it in Turkish. In another series, we talked about racism in kindergarten and informed parents about their rights.

“You can’t be an entrepreneur”

I saw a problem in the German media landscape. My first minimum viable product (MVP), namely my YouTube channel, proved that there was a market for it. So I founded my non-profit startup and applied for funding from a startup accelerator in Germany. I didn’t get the grant; it was another no.

But that left the door open for a different opportunity. Two years later, I am in California at Stanford University as a joint fellow of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships and Stanford’s Institute for Advancing Just Societies. In my time here, I am exploring two critical questions: How can we diversify Germany’s media landscape? Also, what is the best business model for media that serves an immigrant population?

“Netflix” for Germany’s immigrant community: Problem and solution

According to the German Federal Statistical Office by the year 2030, almost 40% of people under the age of 20 in Germany will be immigrants. And Turks are the biggest community among them. However right now, according to the NGO Neue deutsche Medienmacher:innen, only 5% of those working in German media come from immigrant backgrounds. So this tells me there is a huge, growing market for content in Turkish, but the German media establishment isn’t positioned to reach this new German population. I want to fill this gap.

Because I come from the immigrant community. I speak their language. I know their needs. When I came to Germany at the age of 15, I went to the library one day and asked for a book that would help me understand Germany and its culture. A lot of immigrants still have those same questions and curiosity. And that’s why I’m the right person to realize a “Netflix” for immigrant communities in Germany and beyond. My growth plan goes beyond the news I provide in Turkish on my YouTube channel.

I don’t just want to do news, but also dating or cooking shows in their language. Not just journalism, but also entertainment. At the beginning of 2020 I started Germany’s first late-night show for immigrants that I was able to produce thanks to donations from my followers because I believe in the power of humor. Humor empowers people. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit and I had to give up my show and dedicate myself solely to coronavirus videos.

The world is my stage: Target market

Serving the Turkish speaking immigrant community in Germany is just the first step. I imagine using AI to offer the content in other languages like Arabic, which is also a big community in Germany. I’ve already experimented with this. I have translated one episode of my political talk show from my YouTube channel into Arabic. And the success is in the numbers. Although my content is primarily in Turkish, Arabic speakers found and watched my channel. The Arabic version has almost half as many clicks as the Turkish version of that same show. The video was not only clicked on in Germany, but also in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria and Morocco.

I believe this means that with content in a specific language, I not only reach the communities in Germany, but also other countries where these languages are spoken. The same applies to my mainly Turkish content: almost half of my subscribers come from Turkey even though I haven’t produced any content for them.

By targeting the immigrant communities in Germany in their native language, I also reach their countries of origin. So if we only take language as the basis for calculating, target the Turkish, Arabic and Russian communities in Germany and at the same time address their countries of origin, we could achieve a market of around 700 million people.

The power of individuals and people who believe in them

There are stories that only a few people can tell credibly. If the standup comedian Trevor Noah had not grown up in apartheid, he might not have been able to make injustices visible with so much tolerance and strength. Likewise, if I hadn’t come to Germany as a refugee child, I wouldn’t have a solution for the lack of diversity in the German media landscape.

According to the World Migration Report of the United Nations after the United States, Germany is the second country with the most immigrant population worldwide. I think it is insane that we still don’t have a media designed to serve our immigrant community.

I can do it. And I believe in the vision and in myself. In a profile piece, the online magazine “Journal DJV NRW” of the German Association of Journalists accurately called me a “Successful One Woman Show” because I have been doing this all by myself for the last four years. Imagine what I could do if I had the resources.