Newspapers in western Europe became significantly more sympathetic towards migrants and refugees immediately after the publication of photographs of the lifeless body of Alan (aka Aylan) Kurdi on a Turkish beach.

But within a week of the pictures of the three-year-old boy having been published most of the papers had reverted to their original editorial stance.

And, according to research carried out by the European Journalism Observatory (EJO) network, by the end of the month all were less positive towards migrants than at the beginning.*

The finding emerged in a detailed analysis of the press coverage in eight countries of the flight of Syrian refugees: How European newspapers covered the migration crisis. (This posting is based on a report of the study by Caroline Lees).**

It revealed distinct national trends in how the story was reported; political bias in some newspapers that transcended national boundaries; and the fact that most papers in eastern Europe and the Baltic states did not publish the photographs and barely covered the story.

Researchers looked at how three newspapers in each country - representing broadly left, right and tabloid newspapers - covered three pivotal events concerning migrants in September.

These events were the photographs of Alan Kurdi (2 September); the day Germany introduced border controls (13 September); and the EU summit aimed at agreeing a common European approach to the crisis (23 September).

Then they graded the coverage as positive (compassionate, sympathetic, humane), negative (describing migrants as economic or “illegal”, possibly infiltrated by terrorists, violent, “mobs”, being a “drain on society”) or objective (neutral factual reporting).

Newspapers in Britain - the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail - in Germany, Italy and Portugal devoted considerable space to the crisis and covered it in more detail than elsewhere.

In Germany, Italy and Portugal positive humanitarian stories about migrants increased three-fold immediately after the photographs were published. In the UK the number of positive humanitarian stories across the three newspapers studied also increased, but were fewer (although I detected a genuine change of heart at the time).

But, in all four countries, the number of positive humanitarian stories had decreased by 12 September to nearly the level they had been before the Kurdi photographs.

This demonstrates, says the report, that the surge in sympathetic coverage after the photographs did not signify a long-term shift in media opinion, but appeared to be - as some analysts had suspected - a short-term emotional reaction to the boy’s death.

As for newspapers in eastern European and the Baltic, they devoted significantly less space to the crisis. Only three newspapers of the 12 studied in this group published the Kurdi images and some criticised Germany and the EU for being “too emotional” over the crisis.

None of the Latvian papers in the study published the pictures or mentioned the story, apart from one negative comment about children being used as a propaganda tool. Only one Ukraine newspaper published the photographs.

In the British newspapers, the number of “domestic positive” articles (those urging the government to take in more refugees and lamenting that not enough was being done) increased from zero in the two days before the Kurdi photographs to seven in the two days after. But the situation reverted to only two positive stories one week later, and was back down to zero two weeks later.

Stories about the migrants as a domestic issue in Germany – the country that agreed to accept the highest number - were already overwhelmingly positive before the Kurdi photographs and remained so throughout September. However, by the end of the month, the number of positive articles had begun to decline in Germany.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that conservative newspapers across Europe were significantly more negative when covering the impact of migrants on their own countries. They were also more critical of the European Union’s response to the crisis.

In Italy, the right-leaning Il Giornale was particularly negative towards the migrants in a domestic context. The right-leaning UK titles, the Telegraph and Mail, in company with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Czech Republic’s Mlada fronta Dnes and Poland’s Rzeczpospolita, also tended to be more negative in their coverage of the domestic consequences of the migration crisis and their government’s handling of it.

Again unsurprisingly, left-leaning newspapers, such as Guardian in the UK, die Tageszeitung (taz) in Germany and La Repubblica in Italy carried more sympathetic, pro-refugee coverage in general.

Analysts were surprised, however, by initial coverage in the German tabloid, Bild, which is often equated with the Sun in Britain.

Throughout September, despite a traditional editorial line that has stoked anti-migrant prejudice, it published a large number of sympathetic humanitarian stories.

Tina Bettels-Schwabbauer, editor of the EJO’s German site, said this prompted scepticism from many in the media who wondered how long Bild’s enthusiasm for migrants would last.

“Their scepticism was justified,” she noted “By the beginning of October, Bild’s headlines had reverted to reflect their more typical stance” which “could be one of the first hints that the tabloid is changing sides again.”

The second key event - Germany’s reintroduction of border controls - also provoked strongly negative reactions from some countries, but also divided opinion along political lines.

And an analysis of EU-related stories in the UK revealed that its papers carried several negative articles about the EU’s handling of the crisis after 13 September, and of the ability of its members to solve it.

On 11/12 September, the three UK titles ran a total of only two negative and two positive stories about the EU and its response to the crisis. But on 14/15 September, there were no positive stories; 12 were negative and only two were objective.

According to the study, coverage in the British press remained overwhelmingly negative towards the EU’s handling of the crisis after this date until the end of the month.

Notably, say the researchers, the Guardian changed from generally positive to generally negative coverage of the EU after 13 September. Writing about “disarray” in the EU, one Guardian columnist acknowledged the crisis had “played into the hands of the Eurosceptics”. (NB: this was an article by Hugo Dixon, who is a freelance contributor to the Guardian, and not a regular columnist).

Elsewhere, there was a significant increase in negative stories about the EU in Poland and the Czech Republic after the 13 September introduction of border controls.

Czech papers, reflecting the impact of Germany’s decision to reinstate controls at the Austrian border, remained overwhelmingly negative towards Angela Merkel and EU policies from the 13 September for the rest of the month.

German newspaper coverage remained positive towards the migrants even after introduction of the border controls but newspapers became more negative towards the EU after that date.

All German outlets published negative articles about how other EU countries were handling the crisis, their reluctance to collaborate and accommodate more migrants.

*Eight websites, all part of the EJO network, collaborated in the study. The researchers were Caroline Lees, England; Roman Hajek, Czech Republic; Tina Bettels-Schwabbauer and Anna Carina Zappe, Germany; Philip Di Salvo, Italy; Adam Szynol and Michal Kuś, Poland; Ana Pinto Martinho, Portugal; Liga Ozolina, Latvia; Halyna Budivska, Ukraine.

Among the studied newspapers were: UK: Telegraph, Guardian, Mail; Germany: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Bild, taz. Italy: Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Giornale. Poland: Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Fakt. Latvia: Latvijas Avīze, Diena, Vesti Segodņa. Ukraine: Den.

**NB: The study uses the term ‘migrants’ to cover both migrants and refugees. FULL REPORT on the EJO site