Did the deputy editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” violate journalistic standards? A three-person team is supposed to examine the allegations against Alexandra Föderl-Schmid. Including Steffen Klusmann.
While Alexandra Föderl-Schmid has temporarily retired as deputy editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the big test is now coming. Did she handle sources improperly when writing texts? That is the question that a commission consisting of three experts is supposed to clarify. As the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” announced on its own behalf on Wednesday, the former “Spiegel” editor-in-chief Steffen Klusmann, together with the head of the German Journalism School, Henriette Löwisch, and the journalism professor Klaus Meier, are supposed to clear up the allegations. And determine whether Föderl-Schmid has violated journalistic standards.
Klusmann is already known from another media affair: He was editor-in-chief of “Spiegel” until May 2023, during which time he dealt with the scandal surrounding fake texts by the award-winning “Spiegel” journalist Claas Relotius. In the industry, Klusmann was respected for his handling of the refurbishment. He recently investigated a case for the ARD broadcaster NDR. Namely that of the controversial journalist, Putin biographer and documentary filmmaker Hubert Seipel, who received payments from Russia. This is now the next prominent order for Klusmann in the media industry.
The examination follows reports from several media outlets, including those regarding the journalist’s dissertation. The industry portal “Medieninsider” first wrote about it in December. Föderl-Schmid is said to have improperly quoted formulations from other media in some of her texts and, in one case, copied them verbatim. The audit surrounding Föderl-Schmid was announced after the “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber came forward about the matter. He has it on Wednesday published some of his criticisms of the journalistic texts and the doctoral thesis on his news blog.
What are the articles about?
What can you find here? The first journalistic passage that criticizes Weber can be found at the end of a long interview that Föderl-Schmid conducted with Wolf Biermann. In a “Personal” section you can find key information about Biermann as information at the end. These are similar to the information about the songwriter on Wikipedia.
On Twitter, where Föderl-Schmid’s journalistic work is primarily discussed, journalist Jonas Vogt pointed out a more far-reaching example. In one Article about Hamas’ tunnel system from October last year It looks like Föderl-Schmid has a few sentences or passages taken from an article by a colleague that appeared in “Welt” a few days earlier.
The editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” had admitted that Föderl-Schmid had handled the matter incorrectly. However, the management’s actions made a name for themselves because they checked the electronic communication of the entire editorial team to find out who had given the “media insider” internal information from an editorial conference. The “FAZ” described the editor-in-chief’s approach as a “drawn search”.
Föderl-Schmid is one of Austria’s most prominent journalists. The 53-year-old native of Upper Austria worked for “Der Standard” for 27 years, becoming the first woman to become editor-in-chief of an Austrian daily newspaper in 2007. In 2017 she left the quality newspaper to work initially as an Israel correspondent for the “SZ” and since 2020 as deputy editor-in-chief of the German newspaper. (rovi/APA)
Read more about these topics: