Christoph Sydow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christoph Sydow (* 1985 in Berlin-Lichtenberg ; † June 1, 2020 in Berlin ) was a German journalist and foreign editor of the news magazine Der Spiegel . He specialized in the Near and Middle East and the Arab World .

life and career

Christoph Sydow attended the Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Already as a teenager he pursued the professional goal of political journalism , dealt not only with politics but also with international sports culture, including the sports of hockey and cricket, which are widespread in South Asia and the Commonwealth of Nations . After graduating from high school, he studied Islamic studies and history at the Free University of Berlin . In 2005 he founded the blog Alsharq together with his fellow students Robert Chatterjee and Christoph Dinkelaker , in which mainly students published articles about the Middle East. The blog was nominated for the Grimme Online Award in 2013.

In 2009, Sydow worked as an author and editor for the specialist magazine zenith , then zenith - Zeitschrift für den Orient , and mainly wrote political reports and analyzes on the Arab world. At the beginning of the Arab Spring 2011 he made several media appearances for zenith and became known to a wider public as a specialist journalist and Middle East specialist of the younger generation.

After a subsequent traineeship at Spiegel Online in 2012, Sydow became an editor there, and after a merger with the print department at the beginning of 2020, he worked for the Spiegel umbrella brand . During this time, Sydow continued to write regularly for zenith, including on digital topics and the importance of network culture in the MENA region .

According to Barbara Hans , a member of the Spiegel editor-in-chief, Sydow was known in-house for his own style of political analysis of what was going on in the Middle East; Colleagues referred to this as "Sydowlyse". Sydow also produced short video analyzes of events of newsworthiness, including those relating to terrorist groups such as the Islamic State or the war in Syria . In doing so, he compared mostly openly accessible sources and different reports by the conflicting parties and added them to the geopolitical context.

Florian Harms , head of news at T-Online and former editor-in-chief of Spiegel Online, described Sydow as an “extraordinary journalist” who has proven that one can convey great specialist knowledge “through a precise writing style in such an appealing way that it helps a broad readership to capture the world to understand better".

On January 20, 2020, Christoph Sydow appeared for the last time as a moderator at an information event on the subject of "Arab Spring 2.0 or a new war in the Gulf?"

Sydow was married and had a daughter and a son. He died of suicide on June 1, 2020 in Berlin at the age of 35 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Daniel Gerlach: Obituary for the death of journalist Christoph Sydow: Over the horizon. In: zenith . June 10, 2020, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Grimme Online Award 2013: Alsharq. In: grimme-online-award.de. Retrieved June 10, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Martin Kulke: Between open violence and bizarre staging - Who is this Gaddafi? Christoph Sydow on Gaddafi. (mp3 audio; 7.3 MB; 5:10 minutes) In: detektor.fm . February 28, 2011, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Carsten Germis: Online appearance of the "mirror": Fusion in the net. In: FAZ.NET . January 8, 2020, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  5. ^ Christoph Sydow: The Fight for Arab Web Spaces. In: zenith. December 6, 2019, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Barbara Hans : On the death of our colleague Christoph Sydow: Mensch, Christoph! In: Spiegel Online . June 10, 2020, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Christoph Sydow: Demonstrators against the army: Algerian attrition. In: Spiegel Online. August 3, 2019, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Christoph Sydow: Alleged use of poison gas in Syria: "The attack was worthwhile for Assad in the short term". (Video on YouTube, 4:10 minutes) In: Spiegel Online. April 9, 2018, accessed June 10, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Florian Harms : What is important today: The quiet voices. In: T-Online. June 11, 2020, accessed June 11, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Monday on the Couch: Arab Spring 2.0 or a new war in the Gulf? Bosch Alumni Network, January 20, 2020, accessed June 10, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Sydow, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and foreign editor of the news magazine Der Spiegel
DATE OF BIRTH 1985
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Lichtenberg
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 2020
Place of death Berlin