As of: February 9, 2024, 6:30 a.m
By: Johannes Welte, Dirk Walter
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Alexandra Föderl-Schmid © Friedrich Bungert
Emergency services were looking for a missing woman on the Inn.
She is said to be Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, deputy editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
The police fear the worst.
Accusations of plagiarism had been made against the 53-year-old.
Munich – On Thursday morning at 4:33 a.m. Stefan Weber received an email from Alexandra Föderl-Schmid.
“I learned a lot about media, mechanisms, people and business,” it said.
And further: “At least this hunt is over.”
Stefan Weber runs an office in Salzburg for checking plagiarism, titles and reports.
Föderl-Schmid was a test case.
He published the email from the journalist, whom he had never met in person, on the “X” portal yesterday morning.
“I'm curious to see what's 'over' and who exactly is 'hunting' who here,” he wrote.
That sounded mocking.
Weber told our newspaper later that day that he had no idea how the case would develop.
Blue Mercedes found by missing person near a gas station
According to information from our newspaper, Alexandra Föderl-Schmid has been missing since yesterday.
The editor's blue Mercedes was discovered near a BP gas station near Braunau am Inn.
There is consternation and concern in the “SZ” editorial team.
Süddeutsche Verlag does not want to comment officially.
A spokesman only says this much: “We ask for your understanding that we are not commenting out of consideration for Alexandra Förderl-Schmid and her family.”
Police confirmed that there had been a “missing person search for a lady” on both sides of the 6 degree cold border river.
There is “a possibility of suicide”.
According to “Mediengruppe Bayern”, items belonging to the journalist were found in the water and witnesses saw a woman in the water.
There is also talk of a farewell letter.
The search was called off around midday.
Inconclusive.
“Plagiarism Hunter” checks the SZ journalist’s doctoral thesis
Weber is a plagiarism expert, some call him a “plagiarism hunter,” and is not insignificantly involved in the “hunt” that the SZ journalist mentioned.
But he doesn't see it as hunting, but rather as professional research work.
He had begun to examine Föderl-Schmid's diploma thesis and dissertation for plagiarism.
The works date from 1993 and 1996.
Weber received the order for his investigation from the news portal “Nius”, which is headed by the former “Bild” editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt.
He himself asked “Nius” whether he could get money for it – a low four-figure sum, as Weber tells our newspaper.
The fact that “Nius” is considered right-wing populist doesn’t bother him.
“I didn’t care about that issue.”
Reporting sets off a wave of outrage online
Stefan Weber had even more plans: With a team, he wanted to examine all of the journalist's articles, around 7,000 articles from the Austrian newspaper "Der Standard", where the journalist used to work, and over 400 articles from the "SZ".
So far he has only taken “a sample,” says Weber.
But initial results, published on Wednesday, were enough to set off a wave of outrage on “X”.
“Left-wing fairytale aunt,” wrote an anonymous person about Föderl-Schmid.
“Fraudster” a second.
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In Austria, the case is a political issue: the magazine “Falter” suspected a hunt for left-wing journalists, paid for by the right-wing portal “Nius”.
“The disinhibited manner” in which Reichelt “runs his unscrupulous campaign against Alexandra Föderl-Schmid particularly disgusts me,” wrote a “Spiegel” journalist.
Föderl-Schmid recently withdrew from day-to-day operations.
Industry magazine also publishes the suspicion
The story – the “hunt”, as Föderl-Schmid called it – does not begin with Weber in Salzburg.
It starts at “Medieninsider” in Berlin.
On December 18th last year, the online journal reported on abnormalities under the headline “Is the deputy head of the Süddeutsche copying without labeling?”
In the journalist's publications, it says, there are "parts that also appear in texts and articles that neither come from her nor from the Süddeutsche Zeitung."
SZ editor herself admitted omissions
Föderl-Schmid wrote a lot about the Middle East and especially Israel; she was a correspondent for the “SZ” there until 2020.
Now, for example, there are indications that she is said to have copied passages into her articles from an Islamism dossier published in 2017 by the Federal Agency for Civic Education - without making this visible to readers.
She is also said to have copied passages from articles in “Spiegel”, “Welt” and “Deutschlandfunk”.
Föderl-Schmid admitted to a trade magazine that she “may have taken too much literally.”
Stefan Weber also began his research there.
(By the way: Our Bayern newsletter informs you daily about all the important stories from Bavaria.)
Secret information also published by the SZ editorial team
The SZ editorial team was alarmed - not only about a possible case of plagiarism, but also about the fact that the information spread in the "Media Insider" probably came from the SZ editorial team.
So a mole in the editorial team.
The editor-in-chief went on a search and, in a controversial campaign, had technical data on their editors' email and telephone connections checked.
When this was discussed in another editorial meeting, it was promptly put back in the “Media Insider”.
Plagiarism expert Stefan Weber is dismayed at the turn the case has now taken.
He emphasizes that the destruction of the person is never the aim of the tests.
“I have a scientific interest in plagiarism.”
The “SZ” has also set up a three-person commission led by the former “Spiegel” boss Steffen Klusmann to investigate the allegations.
But she hadn't even started work yet.
In general, 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 is suffering from an existential life crisis or depression, please contact the telephone counseling service on 0800-1110111. The Psychiatry Crisis Service for Munich and Upper Bavaria also offers help on 0180-6553000. Further information can be found on the website www.kritikendienst-psychiatrie.de.
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