A large-scale search operation with around 100 emergency services on the Inn on Thursday morning in the border area between Bavaria and Upper Austria was unsuccessful and was called off around midday. Armin Bach and Christian Wanninger report from the “Neue Passauer Presse” (PNP). Several indications suggest that Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, deputy editor-in-chief of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), took her own life, reports the PNP. Föderl-Schmid’s car was found in the parking lot of a large gas station near the border. A suicide note was also found, the PNP reported, citing police sources.
Before Christmas, allegations arose against Föderl-Schmid regarding her handling of sources, which were first reported by the “Media Insider” service. On February 5th, the SZ called in an external commission to review the allegations. In addition, Föderl-Schmid had asked the University of Salzburg to examine her dissertation from 1996 because the plagiarism assessor Stefan Weber, according to his own account, found “fragments of plagiarism” in it. The SZ had announced that Föderl-Schmid would withdraw from day-to-day operations until the audits were completed.
To person
Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, born in 1971, has been deputy editor-in-chief since July 2020. Previously, she was a correspondent for Israel and the Palestinian territories. She moved to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2017. Before that, she was editor-in-chief and later co-editor of the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard and the news portal derStandard.at for ten years. She studied journalism, political science and history and did her doctorate on the dual broadcasting system in Germany. She was also a Reuters/APA Geiringer Fellow in 2005 and is on the board of the Reuters Institute for the Study in Journalism in Oxford. She was awarded the Austrian Kurt Vorhofer Prize for political journalism, the Constitution Prize and the Ari Rath Prize. She was also instrumental in the re-establishment of the Press Council in Austria.
Notice
As a general rule, we do not report on suicides so that such cases do not encourage possible imitators. Reporting only takes place if the circumstances receive particular public attention. If you or someone you know needs help, please contact the telephone counseling service on Tel. (0 800) 1 11 01 11.