Next year, MDR will take over the midday magazine Mima from the RBB, and many of the mostly freelance employees of the ARD magazine hope that things will continue for them somehow, just in Leipzig instead of in Berlin. This is the starting position when there is now a public dispute about whether the MDR in the selection process for the moderation of the new Mima has denied two of the previous moderators equal opportunities in the application because they are not East German. Specifically: Aimen Abdulaziz-Said, Hamburger, and Nadia Kailouli, who comes from near Cologne.
Last Friday they announced in identical tweets that they would no longer moderate the show in 2024. Because “according to the MDR editor-in-chief, the future moderation should have an East German background. I have to accept that”.
Moderation job only with East origin? The MDR could, for example, also openly commit to this search profile, after all it has it Mima taken over so that more East finds its way into the ARD.
But when asked on Sunday, the broadcaster said it was “not right that it only has to be of East German origin”.
The problem: statements by MDR editor-in-chief Julia Krittian could obviously be understood differently. On June 29, Krittian was connected to an online editorial conference of the RBB lunchtime magazine. She talked there about the new Mima and the hoped-for greater “nationwide visibility of the reality of life in East Germany,” as MDR director Karola Wille calls it. Several participants in the meeting, with whom the SZ spoke, describe their impression that, according to the statements, the future moderator should have an East German background. Not all respondents remember the specific wording of Krittian, who only briefly addressed the topic of moderation. But all interviewees stated that they had gained this interpretation from what they had heard. So did they all make a mistake and completely misunderstood Julia Krittian?
How can the contradiction between the impression of the employees and the broadcaster’s statement be explained?
What the MDR answers is not very helpful for the clarification if you ask how the contradiction between the impression of the employees and the statement of the broadcaster can be explained: “As explained, it is neither the attitude of Julia Krittian nor of the MDR that an East German background is a mandatory criterion for moderation on MDR.” It is true that “the MDR also attaches importance to East German perspectives.” The fact that there is no mandatory requirement, according to the MDR, can already be seen from the castings “that we have already carried out”. “People with different personal characteristics and backgrounds took part – from East and West, with and without a migration background”.
Aimen Abdulaziz-Said with Susann Reichenbach in the RBB lunchtime magazine.
(Photo: Gundula Krause/dpa)
Kailouli and Abdelaziz-Said were not invited to these auditions, which began the weekend after Krittian’s performance. The MDR explained to the NDR broadcast Zappthat the two had not applied. It sounded like they had to apply to get to the casting. Of course, however, a station can invite applicants in whom it is interested. This is the practice anyway when moderations are assigned. And Kailouli and Abdulaziz-Said would be as current Mima-Moderators have not been a far-fetched option for a casting. According to SZ information, the two moderators only found out about the upcoming test recordings about a week before the casting and asked in an email why they were not invited. Krittian’s remarks in the editorial meeting – or the message that one could get from it – could then have been understood directly as an answer.
Another description that reached the SZ goes like this: the moderators were advised by an RBB executive not to position themselves on the MDR until the ARD announced the new one Mima will make public in a press release at the MDR. If that’s true, however, the RBB would have given you bad advice, not the MDR. On request, the RBB “explicitly does not confirm this representation, but we will not make our internal exchange public afterwards,” it said.
In the meantime, the SZ spoke to two other moderators who were at the casting of the MDR and confirmed that they had not waited, but had applied to the MDR themselves or sought contact after it became clear that the leadership of the magazine would change.
When the ARD finally actually released their press release on the new Mima published – it was the day after Krittian’s appearance on the RBB team – it would have been too late anyway. Castings started immediately afterwards and Kailouli and Abdulaziz-Said tweeted out how they felt.
At RBB, you shouldn’t be happy about the whole thing, especially since it’s still about the question of whether Mima-Change employees to Leipzig. In the answer that MDR sent to the SZ inquiry about Krittian’s appearance, RBB editor-in-chief David Biesinger can be quoted as follows: “I am very grateful to MDR for the collegial, constructive cooperation. It is all the more regrettable that the confidentiality disregarded by conversations and things are taken out of context.” That is not an answer to the contradictions.