Until the beginning of this week was image Julian Reichelt. Everything had to go through for four and a half years be Office, he determined the course of Germany’s loudest newspaper: which issues are set, which politicians are supported with campaigns, which private lives are dragged to the public. Kai Diekmann had already led the editorial team as a one-man powerhouse. Reichelt, however, directed as editor-in-chief and chairman of the editors-in-chief (a post that the publisher had created especially for him) image-Media as powerful and opinionated as hardly anyone before him. So what will be the effect of his being gone now? How will image change? Or – will anything change at all?
Julian Reichelt, that much is clear, has image ushered into a new era. He drove forward digitization and was in charge of the development of the in-house TV channel, which the publisher’s founder Axel Springer had wanted so much. Above all, however, Reichelt changed the course of the company in terms of content.
Mats Schönauer and Moritz Tschermak have been observers of the Bild newspaper for many years. Tschermak runs the critical website Bildblog.defor whom both write. In the spring, they published their joint book “Regardless of losses. How image divides society with fear and hate”.
With its predecessor Diekmann, “Bild” was allowed to be self-deprecating. Reichelt became the master of anger
Diekmann still preferred a voyeuristic boulevard, a mix of celebrity, TV and sex stories that could be rowdy, but also cheerful, sometimes even self-deprecating. With Reichelt it became darker, more political, more divisive. The dirty stories of the boulevard faded into the background. Instead on page one: fear, anger, chaos. Combined with recurring motifs such as Islam or Vladimir Putin or the wars in Syria and Afghanistan and the failure in this regard that Reichelt attested to German politics. In other words, topics that had already moved him as a young war reporter, and that as editor-in-chief he was now able to put into the paper in a much larger format.
Foreign policy is likely to be less in the future image take place, and in any case no longer as obsessive and radical as under Julian Reichelt. Some of the topics that were very close to his heart are said to have met with significantly less enthusiasm from the rest of the editorial team, as one could hear again and again internally. And the dwindling readership of the printed ones image Didn’t stop Reichelt with that either: The circulation figures sank under him to the lowest level since the 1950s. Achieved digitally image on the other hand, according to their own statements, 5.6 million users per day.
Should image are you considering a change of course in terms of content in the meantime? There are at least initial indications of this: an increase in stories from the world of celebrities and aristocrats has been observable for a while now, both in the printed newspaper and online. There is hardly a day on which there is no coverage of Prince Harry or other royals, and hits and TV celebrities are again big on the front page. Just this week: “Despite double vaccination in intensive care unit! Wife of pop star Tony Marshall in BILD: I’m worried about Tony”.
At Bild TV, the released editor-in-chief leaves an enormous gap. Because he made for action
The fits this trend Tanja May signed onwho has worked as a gossip reporter for twenty years Colorful was in use and then closed in October image changed, where she is now head of entertainment and deputy editor-in-chief. As a dowry, May had a scoop with her. image drove the topic as big as it rarely occurs even there, and also let its own TV channel benefit. As a push message to everyone image-App users: “Switch on from 7 p.m. – The sensation at BILD on television”. at Bild.de with a big countdown on the home page. And finally at 7 p.m. Picture TV: “GERMANY’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY NEWS – HELENE FISCHER IS PREGNANT”. More than a dozen articles fired image in the next few days. A model for the future? Will celebrity stories and nobility gossip move more into focus again – instead of politics, Putin, Islam? Johannes Boie anyway, who is now Reichelt’s successor as image– becomes bosssaid loudly Media insider in his inaugural address to the workforce, scoops like Helene Fischer’s baby news are “awesome”.
In part it should be for the image-Editorial staff will simply find it difficult to maintain the Reichelt course without Reichelt. Especially with the two-month-old but extremely important project Picture TV there is an enormous gap after his departure – Reichelt was happy and opinionated on the air. Although Claus Strunz is still an avowed fan of populism who is responsible for the moving image plans in the image– Editor-in-Chief. But in the past few weeks no one has caused action so often and so loudly in the Picture TV-Studio like the (now former) boss personally. In his lectures on the state of the nation, Reichelt made wildest assertions, for example that “politicians” do not want to show any way out of the pandemic: “They want to maintain this condition.” In view of the audience ratings, some of which are so low that they are no longer measurable, it sometimes seemed like a desperate attempt to attract at least a few more lateral thinkers.
Julian Reichelt with a colored edition of the first “Bild” newspaper.
(Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / picture alliance)
An important factor for the development of the content will also be how the small but influential core of employees behaves, which Reichelt has gathered around himself in his years as editor-in-chief: loyal supporters in high-ranking positions such as Paul Ronzheimer (deputy editor-in-chief), Björn Stritzel (Chief Correspondent Foreign and Security Policy) or Filipp Piatov (Debate and Opinion Chief), who in the past few days never tired of publicly thanking their friend and ex-boss and of his “outstanding journalistic skills” and his “selfless commitment to people “to rave about. Stick with it image? And will they try to continue Reichelt’s agenda? A long-time employee says that the Reichelt loyalists were still “in a state of shock.”
A transparency offensive appears image Not even wanting to toast – about Reichelt’s departure the paper only printed a small message on page three: He had been released from his duties “as a result of press research”. She learned more image– Readership not.
It looks like they are image-Media continue what they have been talented for for seven decades, even without Reichelt, regardless of who was the boss: withholding facts, distorting and sealing, making riot, kicking down, making women an object, violating privacy, destroying livelihoods . Nevertheless, Reichelt is sure to be one of the most dazzling and brutal editors-in-chief in the image– Go down in history and leave behind unprecedented escapades and missteps, also on the journalistic level. For example, remember that image– Reports on a “sex mob” made up of hundreds of refugees who “raved” through Frankfurt and abused women. A story that attracted international attention – and turned out to be a hoax. Or reporting on the private and love life of a model who was in a relationship with a professional footballer: image quoted from her private messages (“Now it’s getting really dirty”), let her ex raise serious allegations against her, slaughtered the topic for days. The 25-year-old took her own life.
For only one person, the legacy of Julian Reichelt seems radiant. When he left, Mathias Döpfner once again certified that he image “journalistically developed excellently”.