Acute cases of media failure The Initiative Nachrichtenaufklärung (INA) e.V. selects the Top Ten Forgotten News Stories of 2026
By Hektor Haarkötter | The Initiative Nachrichtenaufklärung (INA) e.V. has once again presented a list of stories that have been neglected by the German media in the current year: the Top Ten Forgotten News Stories of 2026. Each year, a jury of scholars, practicing journalists, and students selects the ten most important topics from a large number of suggestions compiled by student research groups. The public is invited to submit topic suggestions if they concern issues that affect a large group of people but receive little or no coverage in the media. These suggestions are reviewed in a multi-stage process and prepared for voting by the jury. INA also conducts accompanying scientific research on neglected news. It uses the concept of »agenda cutting« as a theoretical framework for understanding news neglect. Drawing on the concept of agenda setting in communication research, agenda cutting theory posits that issues of high relevance to large parts of society are systematically ignored in everyday journalism. The reasons for this can lie both within journalism itself and in external pressures. These include economic considerations, such as the need to protect advertisers or the fear of lawsuits. A more recent threat to news diversity arises from the selection criteria embedded in algorithms and artificial intelligence, which steer news flows on the internet in largely non-transparent ways (cf. Haarkötter & Nieland, 2023).