It's certainly a disturbing occurrence, but I don't think it's being underreported at this stage. The German press and senior politicians do seem to be taking it pretty seriously now - whatever the reason was for the delay of several days. The message coming from the top (the female mayor of Cologne and Angie herself) from just scanning several German newspapers now is quite clearly 'we can't allow this to happen'.
The latest info is that 400 men were probably involved, not 1000 (still 400 too many, of course). The mayor is emphasising that there is no evidence the recent influx of refugees had anything to do with it.
The 'advice', code of conduct or whatever for Karneval, is not aimed specifically at women to change their behaviour - it's directed at everyone who participates, male and female. Obviously it's not actually going to work (keeping at arms' length from everyone isn't ever feasible in a city, even outside Karneval time), but I assume it's being issued so that police have a reason to intervene at an early stage when a suspicious-looking crowd forms, possibly before a crime technically happens.
And for all of you who seem to think that groping is an everyday and accepted affair over here in 'uncivilised' mainland Europe: I've lived in Berlin for a quarter of a century near enough and have never had a major incident with sexual harassment, neither have my teenage daughters. There have been a few very minor things but nothing really threatening, sadly probably to be expected in any major city nowadays. The last time I experienced any sexual harassment was when on holiday in West Wales for a week, from a drunken Welshman.
And that makes this organised attack in Cologne and Hamburg all the more shocking, because it's NOT normal, it was clearly coordinated and was clearly a provocation, as much so as an ISIS bombing attack. By linking this to the behaviour of immigrants in general you're falling into their trap of spreading hatred and prejudice.
"I read years ago (during the hoo-ha over the British citizenship tests when those were introduced) that the Dutch make applicants for Dutch citizenship watch a film about life in the Netherlands. This includes for instance gay couples being affectionate (obviously not having sex but holding hands? kissing?) and it is made clear that if someone wants to be a Dutch citizen, they need to live with the values in that society."
Something similar happens already with the compulsory German citizenship test. A number of questions are directed at the equality of men and women, freedom of sexual identity, etc What's disturbing is that you can still get citizenship if you only get half the questions right, so you could technically answer that you don't believe in equality of the sexes and nonetheless be granted citizenship - but at least you would be aware that you are breaking the law and contravening social expectations.