News about right-wing extremism pertains to the media’s information and watchdog functions in democratic societies. Since audience orientation is important to the journalistic profession, it is important to know what different news audiences expect of journalists regarding their professional role and their reporting practices when it comes to media coverage of right-wing extremism. To bridge this research gap, by employing a quota sample representative of the general German population (n = 1314) and an independent sample of Muslims living in Germany (n = 248), we demonstrated that Muslims expect a more active role from journalists and even accept controversial reporting practices to combat right-wing extremism. More left-leaning individuals were found to expect more controversial reporting unless they were afraid of right-wing extremism. Among these more left individuals, fear of terrorism seems to activate the argument that a democratic society should not give up its core principles, including the professional autonomy of its journalists and ethical reporting practices.

有关右翼极端主义的新闻与民主社会中媒体的信息和监督职能有关。由于以受众为导向对新闻界很重要，因此重要的是要了解不同的新闻受众对新闻工作者在新闻界报道右翼极端主义时的专业作用和报道习惯有何期待。为了弥补这一研究差距，可以采用代表德国总人口的配额样本（n  = 1314）和居住在德国的穆斯林独立样本（n = 248），我们证明了穆斯林希望新闻工作者发挥更积极的作用，甚至接受有争议的报道做法来打击右翼极端主义。除非他们担心右翼极端主义，否则将会发现更多倾向于左倾的人期待更多有争议的报道。在这些左翼人士中，对恐怖主义的恐惧似乎激起了这样一个论点，即民主社会不应放弃其核心原则，包括其记者的职业自治和道德报道做法。