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Julian Reichelt
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
With immediate effect, Julian Reichelt is no longer editor-in-chief of the "Bild" newspaper.
This was announced by the Axel Springer company.
As a result of press research, the company had gained new insights into the current behavior of Julian Reichelt in the last few days, it said.
The executive board learned that Julian Reichelt had not clearly separated private and professional matters even after completing the compliance procedure in spring 2021 and told the executive board the untruth.
Johannes Boie, 37, currently editor-in-chief of “Welt am Sonntag”, will be the new chairman of the three-person editor-in-chief and member of the so-called »Bild« board.
Alexandra Würzbach remains editor-in-chief of "Bild am Sonntag" and is responsible for personnel and editorial management.
As editor-in-chief, Claus Strunz is responsible for the range of moving images.
The "New York Times" published a long report on the Axel Springer media group at the weekend, also with a view to the plans to take over the US media group Politico.
The article dealt among other things with "Bild" editor-in-chief Reichelt and allegations against him that became public for the first time in the spring.
In the German media there were allegations of abuse of power and exploitation of relationships of dependency.
SPIEGEL also described the Reichelt system.
Springer later examined the allegations in an internal procedure.
In March, the company announced: »The board of directors came to the conclusion that it would not be justified to remove Julian Reichelt from his position as editor-in-chief due to the errors in office and personnel management found in the investigation - which are not of a criminal nature The overall assessment also included the “enormous strategic and structural change processes and the journalistic performance under the leadership of Julian Reichelt”.
After a temporary leave of absence, Reichelt finally returned to Germany's largest tabloid.
The "New York Times" mentioned in its report that the investigative team at Ippen - which emerged from the former German team of "Buzzfeed News" - had researched for months and was actually planning a publication with further details.
This was then withheld after the influence of the publisher Dirk Ippen.
“As the Ippen media group, we are very clear about the fact that editorial teams can and must work freely and independently.
At the same time, a publisher always has the right to set guidelines, and it is also normal to weigh up the legal risks together in large-scale research. "
The research team had expressed their displeasure with the decision in a letter to the publisher and the management.
The protest letter circulated on the net.
ih / mkl / ssu
