Friedrich Orter

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Friedrich "Fritz" Orter (born July 10, 1949 in Sankt Georgen im Lavanttal ) is an Austrian journalist and author .

Life

Friedrich Orter studied Slavic Studies , History , German and Philosophy in Vienna . In 1975 he received his doctorate in philosophy with a dissertation on "The Austrian Consuls in Serbia 1836-1842".

Friedrich Orter completed his studies with the aim of becoming a high school teacher. During his probationary year as a teacher, he realized that this profession was not his interests. In 1975 Orter began working for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), initially for Radio Austria International (shortwave). In 1980, with the background of his Slavic studies, he came to the newly founded ORF Eastern European editorial office under Paul Lendvai and Barbara Coudenhove-Kalergi . He had his first assignment abroad in the early 1980s in Poland , from where he reported on Lech Wałęsa and Solidarność . He started working as a special rapporteur in crisis areas when he reported on the revolution in Romania in 1989 .

From 1991 he reported regularly on the dramatic events in the former Yugoslavia . From there he was withdrawn from his employer for security reasons in September 1991, when the Serbian- Yugoslav General Milan Aksentijevic accused him of staging fighting to manipulate the Austrian public against the Serbs at a press conference . Afterwards he received death threats from members of ideologically infiltrated, so-called Yugoslav cultural associations, even in Austria.

In the following years Orter reported for ORF from all crisis areas in the Near and Middle East , for example from the war in Afghanistan , the Iraq war and the civil war in Syria .

After a last assignment abroad in Syria , from where he returned on September 21, 2012 and reported on the same evening in ZIB 2 , Orter retired at the end of the month. According to his own information, he reported on more than 14 wars for ORF.

On September 29, 2012 at 12:25 am, he said goodbye to his TV audience in a six-minute conversation with Matthias Euba from the ZIB 24 news program .

Self-image as a reporter

Orter rejects the designation war correspondent because B. the propaganda reporter of the First and Second World War or who at the beginning of the Iraq war called the US armed forces “ embedded journalists ”. His self-image is therefore not to be a war correspondent, but a "peace reporter". On September 29, 2012 he said:

"The mainspring is what I believe distinguishes every good journalist who takes his job seriously: That's honesty, that's courage, and that's knowledge. [...] My humble contribution was about that To report the misery of those who are affected by these warlords, that is, civilians [...] I believe that our work would continue to be, as a journalist, to play the mediator as a journalist in order to prevent such catastrophes. [...] A journalist's life ends with his own last sigh. "

External assessment

On the blurb of his book Crazy World (2005) there is a comment from the Kronen Zeitung :

“The war has many faces. One of them - and that is meant literally - is that of ORF correspondent Friedrich Orter. His face often tells more than countless reports. "

An assessment in the newspaper Die Presse from 2009:

"Probably the best ORF reporter [...] at Orter is and always was the effort to make the events almost physically tangible for the audience. And yet he does not lose the bigger picture. "

Private

Friedrich Orter was married to Roswitha Orter and has a daughter. In September 2012, at the end of a report on the civil war in Syria in ZIB 2, he announced that it was time for him - one year after the death of his wife - to stop his missions at the age of 64 because he had the strength to go on is missing.

According to Orter, he finds “refuge from the rough reality” while hiking, listening to music and reading especially the classics of literature: “I don't know how often I've read War and Peace , that is perhaps a kind of psychotherapy for me.”

Works

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fritz Orter on the civil war in Syria live in the studio. In: ORF .at, September 21, 2012. Retrieved September 22, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b See ZIB 2 on September 21, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b See ZIB 24 on September 28, 2012.
  4. ↑ Quoted from fiesta, 04/2007, p. 49.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Vorarlberger Nachrichten , October 14, 2009.
  6. ↑ Quoted from fiesta, 04/2007, p. 53.
  7. ↑ derStandard.at - Jury: DER STANDARD has Austria's best newspaper editorial team . Article dated December 14, 2012, accessed March 29, 2015.
  8. ↑ Christoph Silber: ORF reporter legend Fritz Orter receives Axel Corti Prize. In: Kurier.at . August 27, 2020, accessed on August 27, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Orter, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Orter, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Sankt Georgen im Lavanttal