Leila Al-Serori

Leila Al-Serori (born August 17, 1988 in Vienna ) is an Austrian journalist and editor in the politics section of the Süddeutsche Zeitung . In 2019, she was part of the investigative reporter team that sparked the Ibiza affair with the publication of an undercover video .

Career

After completing her Matura in 2006 at the Bundesgymnasium Rahlgasse , Al-Serori completed a degree in theater , film and media studies at the University of Vienna - interrupted by an Erasmus semester in 2009 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - and graduated with a BA in 2011. At the same time, with a diploma thesis on the life and work of Emilia Pardo Bazán, she obtained an M. Phil. In Romance languages , literatures and linguistics from the University of Vienna and an MSc in journalism and new media from the FHWien from Friederike Hassauer .

In May 2012 she started working as an editor at kurier.at , and in May 2015 she was appointed head of “Politics online”. In May 2016 she moved to the political department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

Al-Seroris together with Oliver Das Gupta carried out journalistic reappraisal of Heinz-Christian Strache's past in the neo-Nazi scene and were nominated in 2018 for the Nannen Prize and the German Reporter Prize in the "Investigation" category.

As a result of the research into the Ibiza affair, which was awarded the German Reporter Prize in May 2019, Heinz-Christian Strache resigned as Vice Chancellor of Austria and FPÖ boss and new elections were brought forward in Austria. The reporters had been leaked a covert video in which Strache offered an alleged Russian oligarch to influence Austrian politics. After confirmation of the authenticity by a forensic scientist and Fraunhofer SIT , the editorial teams of Süddeutsche and Spiegel published excerpts from the video synchronized. Strache submitted an advertisement at the end of May 2019. a. against Al-Serori, in which he accused violations of § 201 and § 201a StGB . The public prosecutor's office in Munich I stated after examination that “the accused had not committed a criminal offense”.

Al-Serori and the investigative team at the Süddeutsche Zeitung to which the Strache video had been leaked received the newly created Ibiza Prize in 2020, which is to be awarded annually for audiovisual contributions of "outstanding public relevance". The jury's reasoning stated that the Ibiza video was "exceptionally powerful and revealed which intentions, plans and ulterior motives are sometimes hidden behind public staging, marketing and message control". Al-Serori stated that the several hours of material had not been published in full, but only for a few minutes to show those passages that were "of the greatest possible public interest and which may also be criminally relevant".

As part of the lecture series Political Corruption and Media in Austria (1919-2019) at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna , she gave a lecture on the background and consequences of the Ibiza affair .

Awards

• For research on the Ibiza affair in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Spiegel team :
  • German Reporter Award (2019) in the "Investigation" category
  • Special Prize Investigation (2019) by The Austrian Journalist
  • Second place in the category Team of the Year 2019 by Medium Magazin
  • Nannen Prize (2020) in the "Best Investigative Achievement" category
• Ibiza Prize (2020) for Leila Al-Serori and the investigative team of the Süddeutsche Zeitung from the Austrian Film Director Association and the Dossier research platform .
• Nomination for the German Reporter Award (2018) in the "Investigation" category for "The Strache Files"
• Nannen Preis (2018) nomination in the "Investigation" category for "The Strache Files" (longlist)
• "Top 30 under 30" by Der Österreichische Journalist (2015)

Web links

• LeilaAlSerori.com (personal homepage)
• Leila Al-Serori, author of the Süddeutsche Zeitung
• Leila Al-Serori and Oliver Das Gupta : The Strache Files , Part I ; Part II: Searching for clues. Populist psychogram. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. October 10, 2017 (The search for traces dossier appeared in the Austria Special with the best reports of 2017 in the print edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in December 2017.)
• Interview with Leila Al-Serori about the Ibiza video with Strache , in: ZIB2 , ORF TVThek, May 17, 2019 (accessed April 14, 2020)
• Leila Al-Serori, Bastian Obermayer : How the SZ got the video material (workshop video ) , SZ.de, May 18, 2019
• A real agitator has to go. In: Basler Zeitung. May 20, 2019 (Leila Al-Serori on the dismissal of Herbert Kickl , bazonline.ch )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Leila Al-Serori, Oliver Das Gupta, Peter Münch , Frederik Obermaier , Bastian Obermayer : Secret recordings burden Austria Vice Chancellor heavy. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2019, accessed May 19, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Leila Al-Serori: Emilia Pardo Bazán - The construction of learned femininity in Spain in the 19th century . Diploma thesis with Friederike Hassauer at the University of Vienna . 2011. (CV of Leila Al-Serori on p. 150)
3. ↑ Leila Al-Serori . Portrait of the FHWien . July 2015.
4. ↑ "Kurier" receives digital channel managers . In: derStandard.at . May 18, 2015.
5. ↑ The online team - The people behind kurier.at. ( Memento from November 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: kurier.at .
6. ↑ Job change at a glance - week 18/2016 . In: derStandard.at .
7. ↑ Leila Al-Serori . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung .
8. ↑ Leila Al-Serori, Oliver Das Gupta: The Strache Files. In: Süddeutsche.de. October 10, 2017, accessed May 21, 2019 . Leila Al-Serori, Oliver Das Gupta: Psychogram of a Populist. In: Süddeutsche.de. October 10, 2017, accessed December 5, 2019 . 
    
9. ↑ Nannen Prize 2018 - jurors, winners, nominees and shortlists . In: Nannen price . May 8, 2018.
10. ↑ German Reporter Award 2018 - The 15 nominated searches in the "Investigation" category . In: reporter-forum.de .
11. ↑ Leila Al-Serori, Peter Münch : The day on which Austria trembled. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 18, 2019, accessed May 19, 2019 . 
12. ↑ In an "abandoned hotel": This is how the video handover went . In: Small newspaper . 19th May 2019.
13. ↑ Lukas Zimmer: Munich prosecutors stop investigations against "Ibiza" uncoverers . In: horizon . December 6, 2019.
    Anne Leiding: Discontinuation of the proceedings against those responsible for the Süddeutsche Zeitung because of the publication of the so-called "Ibiza video" . In: Munich prosecutor . December 6, 2019.
14. ↑ "Put fingers in wounds": The Ibiza Prize goes to "Süddeutsche" for the Strache video , Der Standard, January 20, 2020
15. ↑ Leila Al-Serori . Lectures at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna .
16. ↑ First reporter award according to Relotius: Report on digital dictatorship in China and exposure of the Ibiza affair awarded . In: Meedia . 3rd December 2016.
17. ↑ Tobias Pötzelsberger voted "Journalist of the Year". In: The press . December 13, 2019, accessed December 13, 2019 . 
18. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Journalism goes to school. Retrieved January 27, 2020 . 
19. ↑ Nannen Prize 2020: These are the winners. April 30, 2020, accessed April 30, 2020 . 
20. ↑ 2 p.m. 6 p.m., 20 January 2020: Aufdecker-Videos awarded: The Film Director Association and "Dossier" awarded the "Ibiza Prize" for the first time. January 20, 2020, accessed January 27, 2020 . 
21. ↑ "The Journalist": Award for a courier editor . In: kurier.at . June 22, 2015.
22. ↑ Kurz, Strache and Hader: "Süddeutsche Zeitung" with Austria Special , Der Standard, December 7, 2017