Markus Somm

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Markus Paul Somm (born March 16, 1965 in Wettingen ; resident in Erlen ) is a Swiss journalist and historian . From 2010 to 2018 he was editor-in-chief and from 2014 to 2018 also publisher of the Basler Zeitung (BaZ).

Life

Markus Somm grew up as the son of the former ABB Switzerland boss Edwin Somm in Baden . He studied history at the Universities of Munich , Bielefeld and Zurich and political science at Harvard University and graduated from Zurich in 1994 with a licentiate . During his student days, Somm was considered a Trotskyist and was a member of the Group for a Switzerland Without an Army (GSoA). In 2019 he received his doctorate from the University of Freiburg with a thesis on the BBC.

Somm has been working as a journalist in the field of Swiss politics since the mid-1990s, first for the Aargauer Volksblatt , then for the Tages-Anzeiger , among other things as a federal correspondent , and from 2003 for the Weltwoche , most recently as deputy editor-in-chief. He wrote biographies about Henri Guisan and Christoph Blocher as well as a monograph about the Battle of Marignano and publishes as a guest author on the Axis of the Good .

After Tito Tettamanti and Martin Wagner took over the Basler Zeitung in February 2010, Somm was appointed editor-in-chief on August 30, 2010. Under Markus Somm, the Basler Zeitung experienced the biggest slump in readers in its history. In its first year as editor-in-chief, the daily lost 12 percent, a total of 9,340 of its subscribers. Although the Basler Zeitung experienced the biggest slump in readers in its history under Somm - from 2010 to 2016 the certified circulation fell by almost half from 83,773 to 46,237 - he also became the publisher of BaZ on May 1, 2014 and appointed to the Board of Directors. He replaced Filippo Leutenegger , who took office on May 7, 2014 as a Zurich city councilor. As a publisher and editor-in-chief, Somm criticized the fact that there are journalists in some newspapers who, independently of the advertisers, act with unpopular reporting. He emphasized that this would be different under his leadership: companies that place advertisements in his newspaper, according to Somm, “don't have to be stupidly put down”.

Even if Somm is a member of the FDP , he is attested to be politically close to the SVP and its thought leader Christoph Blocher , also against the background of Blocher's financial commitment to the Basler Zeitung , which has been suspected in the media since 2010 and disclosed in 2014 . In addition, Somm had previously worked for Weltwoche , which is generally considered to be closely related to SVP , and published an authorized Blocher biography in 2009.

In connection with the dismissal of editor-in-chief Markus Spillmann at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in December 2014, he was chosen by the board of directors as his successor; Somm waived the appeal after the proposal had sparked violent protests and stayed with the Basler Zeitung .

Somm left BaZ at the end of 2018 as editor-in-chief and publisher. In the spring semester he becomes a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge , USA. He will work on a research project on business models for digital media. He kept his column in the “ SonntagsZeitung ” and the talk show on Radio 1 with Roger Schawinski .

Somm is married to a radio journalist, has five children and lives with his family in Wädenswil .

Works

  • Tin Soldiers of Domestic Policy: Switzerland's Asylum Practice towards Revolutionary Polish Refugees in the 19th Century. In: Monika Bankowski (Ed.): Asylum and residence: Switzerland as a refuge and place of work for Slavs in the 19th and 20th centuries. Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel 1994, ISBN 3-7190-1350-2 , pp. 47-68.
  • "We join!" Swiss bourgeoisie in power from 1930 to 1940. Unpublished thesis, University of Zurich, Zurich 1994.
  • Christoph Blocher: The conservative revolutionary. Appenzeller Verlag, Herisau 2009, ISBN 978-3-85882-482-0 .
  • General Guisan: Swiss-style resistance. Stämpfli, Bern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7272-1346-5 .
  • Marignano. The story of a defeat. Stämpfli, Bern 2015, ISBN 978-3-7272-1441-7 .
  • Electropolis on the Limmat: Baden and the BBC, 1870 to 1925. The description of a transformation. Stämpfli, Bern 2019, ISBN 978-3-7272-6062-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Markus Paul Somm ( Memento from February 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: infocube.ch. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c curriculum vitae (PDF file; 113 kB), website of the Freedom & Responsibility Foundation, accessed on October 17, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b Basler Zeitung AG. In: Commercial Register of the Canton of Basel-Stadt . Retrieved April 30, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b "Weltwoche" - Vice President Markus Somm is the new BaZ editor-in-chief. In: OnlineReports . November 30, 2010.
  5. ↑ Othmar von Matt: A guerrilla fighter makes media bosses difficult to explain. In: Sunday . February 23, 2013.
  6. ^ Andreas Fahrländer: Doctoral thesis by Markus Somm: This is how the BBC electrified the city. Badener Tagblatt, December 4, 2019, accessed on March 24, 2020
  7. ↑ Contributions by Markus Somm to the Axis of the Good .
  8. ↑ Markus Somm becomes the new editor-in-chief of the Basler Zeitung. In: persoenlich.com . August 30, 2010.
  9. ^ Baz edition in free fall. In: advertising week. October 1, 2012, accessed February 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ Basler Zeitung successfully completes restructuring. In: Website of the Basler Zeitung Medien. April 11, 2014 (press release).
  11. ↑ Silke Fürst, Mike Meißner: Set of rules with gaps at the crucial points. In: medienwoche.ch. April 27, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
  12. ↑ "You are not interested in transparency, you are concerned with politics!" In: Sunday newspaper . October 9, 2011, p. 23 (interview).
  13. ↑ Iwan Städler: Blocher's followers were already squatters. In: Tages-Anzeiger . December 15, 2014, accessed February 23, 2016.
  14. ^ Basel: Linke Stadt right sheet. In: Zeit Online . July 3, 2015, accessed April 28, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Markus Somm is to become editor-in-chief - Kader threatens to be dismissed. In: Aargauer Zeitung. February 14, 2014.
  16. ↑ Basel's left “horrified” by the new BaZ editor-in-chief Markus Somm. In: Tages-Anzeiger. August 30, 2010.
  17. ↑ The historian and thoroughbred journalist. In: SonntagsZeitung October 9, 2011, p. 21.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Somm, Markus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Somm, Markus Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss journalist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Wettingen