Peter Littger

Peter Littger (born August 14, 1973 in Aachen ) is a German author , language and media critic and consultant for media content.

Peter Littger (2015)

Life

Littger grew u. a. in Cologne. In 1990 he attended boarding school in the British port city of Dover . In 1992, Littger did military service at the Bundeswehr base in Budel in the Netherlands and then in the Air Force press center in Cologne. He then published critical articles about the Bundeswehr's press staff in the Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt and in the taz . Littger studied ancient, medieval and modern history at the Humboldt University of Berlin and economics and North American studies with a focus on economics and history at the Free University of Berlin , a. a. at the John F. Kennedy Institute. In 2000 he studied sociology, mass psychology and literature with a focus on media and communication at the London School of Economics and Political Science . He obtained the academic degree " Master of Science " (M.Sc.).

In 2001 Peter Littger became editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in Berlin. Until she was hired at the end of 2002, he was responsible for the newspaper's media page. Littger's first editorial conference fell on the afternoon of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks . For the following edition of Die Zeit , Littger commissioned and translated an exclusive essay by the British sociologist and media theorist John B. Thompson on the new and reinterpretation of American symbols such as the national flag.

In spring 2003 Littger joined the founding team of what would later become the magazine Cicero , which the former editor-in-chief of the world , Wolfram Weimer , developed from Potsdam on behalf of the Swiss publisher Michael Ringier . During this time Littger et al. a. a report on Spiegel Online with the title Die BILD der Zukunft .

In 2005, Littger switched to the Gruner + Jahr publishing house in Hamburg to initially develop a “young business magazine” with Nikolaus Röttger - the concept later became part of the title Business Punk . Thereafter, Littger was founding editor and department head of Park Avenue magazine . From 2006 to 2008 Littger was the personal assistant to the "Journalistic Director" Angelika Jahr-Stilcken , who was then co-owner of the publishing house. From 2008 to the end of 2009 Littger headed the “Corporate Publishing” editorial team at G + J Wirtschaftsmedien, where a. won a "golden CP Award" as co-editor-in-chief of the auditing firm's customer magazine PricewaterhouseCoopers . He was also responsible for editorial supplements for the McKinsey management consultancy in the Financial Times Deutschland .

Between 2010 and 2012 Littger v. a. as a consultant for editorial strategies, formats and content for the consulting company "Innovation Media Consulting". He has u. a. Responsible for the first European projects to reduce the frequency of publication of daily newspapers in Norway and Great Britain. The change and repositioning of the Norwegian daily newspaper "ØB" received a " European Newspaper Award " in Vienna in 2012 .

Littger has been working as an independent consultant for international clients since 2012. He develops and optimizes journalistic content and editorial concepts in order to increase their exclusivity, profile and market opportunities.

Between 2013 and 2016 Littger wrote the "FluentEnglish" column for Spiegel Online . In it he dealt with “our favorite foreign language”, more precisely with the English language skills of German-speaking people: how they speak and understand the language - and in the process create misunderstandings or misunderstand contexts themselves.

Littger deals with the inadequate and misleading command of the English language . He described English as a kind of "mother tongue without a mother" and as a "compulsory foreign language" which, unlike all other foreign languages, cannot simply be deselected or ignored. Littger tells stories about "funny and instructive mistakes in our favorite foreign language", and at the same time explains ways to a better understanding and style. He focuses on his own experiences in the English-speaking world and often uses his own linguistic inadequacies as a hook. In 2015 Kiepenheuer & Witsch published his first book The devil lies in the detail - funny and instructive things about our favorite foreign language . It quickly reached first place among the paperback bestsellers by Spiegel / Buchreport and in the bestseller list by GfK / Börsenblatt in the “Non-fiction softcover” category. Since July 2016 he has initially written the column Der Denglische Patient for Manager Magazin . In June 2018, Littger moved to ntv with the column and as the author of other topics .

Littger also appears in the media and companies as a speaker, interview guest and moderator. a. on the topics of language culture and multilingualism, German-English gibberish (“The Denglische Patient”), as well as German-British relations and the self-image, the demands and the idiosyncrasies of the British.

Peter Littger has lived in Berlin since 1993.

Functions and memberships

• since 2007 lecturer at the Hamburg Media School
• since 2014 member of the advisory board of the master's degree program “Digital Journalism”.
• 1997 to 2010 head of the "IJP George Weidenfeld Scholarship Program" for German and British journalists as well as the annual "IJP German-British Journalists' Conference".
• Chairman and managing director of the “King Edward VII British-German Foundation” in London, founded in 1911, and of the “King Edward VII British-German Foundation” in Hamburg.
• In 2010 he was the “Foreign Office Commissioner for German-British Youth Relations”.
• Jury member in the “ Federal Foreign Language Competition ”.

Awards

• 2002 Pons Prize for creative language creators ( Klett-Verlag ) for the new term "Die Teuroristen", which is supposed to describe the skeptics and complainers about the euro as well as the numerous inventors, creators and (copyright) protectors of the term " Teuro ".
• 2015 “Goldenes Buch” ( Kiepenheuer & Witsch Verlag ) for 100,000 copies of The devil lies in the detail sold - funny and instructive information about our favorite foreign language.

Works

as an author

• The devil lies in the detail. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-462-04703-5 .
• The devil lies in the detail - episode 2. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2017, ISBN 978-3-462-04904-6 .
• Lost in Trainstation - we only understand train station: English made in Germany - the picture book. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-462-05167-4

as editor

• Common Destiny vs. Marriage of Convenience - what do Britons and German want from Europe - together with John F. Jungclaussen, Isobel Finkel, Charlotte Ryland, Berlin / London (KE7 Publishing 2014)
• Republic vs. Monarchy - how sound is your constitution? - together with John F. Jungclaussen, Charlotte Ryland, Berlin / London (KE7 Publishing 2012)

as a co-author

• Playful without limits. The media entrepreneur Leo Kirch has been transferred to the media in: "Jahrbuch Fernsehen 2003", Marl (Adolf Grimme Institute 2003)
• Introduction to the German edition of the 9/11 Commission Report , Potsdam (Ringier Publishing 2004)
• A sight of the continent - the gourmet floor of the KaDeWe in Berlin in: "Cotta's Culinary Almanach No 13 - Topic: Germany", Stuttgart (Klett-Cotta 2005)
• The self-destruct journalism. Or: How non-autonomous media observation can become an autonomous correction instance , in: "The self-observation trap - limits and borderlines of media journalism", Wiesbaden (VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2005)
• Great Britain "in:" Basics of Media Policy - A Handbook , Munich (DVA, 2008)
• The situation is very difficult , interview with Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, in: “Why more newspapers? How the Internet is revolutionizing the press ", Göttingen (V&R 2009)
• Paper is patient, the reader is impatient (with Lukas Kircher), in: “Why still journalism? How the Internet is changing a job ", Göttingen (V&R 2010)
• The renaissance of printing ink. About 'reverse publishing' or why the printed word is back in fashion , in: “Yearbook for Journalists 2013”, Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2013)
• Less is a hell of a lot more. The Dutch app NRC Reader , in: "Yearbook for Journalists 2014", Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2014)
• Habermas revisited: Why media digitization spurs on the idea of ​​a new European public sphere (with Thierry Chervel and Patrick Smith), in: “Common Destiny vs. Marriage of Convenience - what do Britons and German want from Europe? ", Berlin / London (KE7 Publishing 2014)
• The ten commandments were not an essay either. The renaissance of the Listicles , in: "Yearbook for Journalists 2015", Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2015)
• Nonstop nonsense. The German-English gibberish in the media , in: "Yearbook for Journalists 2016", Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2016)
• Writing without letters. Digitization affects our language - and especially the text , in: "Yearbook for Journalists 2017", Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2017)
• Loneliness and the spotlight. About life as an author , in: "Yearbook for Journalists 2018", Salzburg (Verlag Johann Oberauer, 2018)
• in English: Vorwort / Preface The two Faces of the South , in: “Days gone by. Roadside Photographs of the American South by Jörg Rubbert ", CH-Salenstein (Benteli, 2018)
• Foreword Der Hofnarr , in: "Royally Incorrect: The best sayings from Philip, Prince Fettnapf", Munich (CH Beck, 2018)

as translator

• from English: How to use graphic design to sell things,…, London / New York (Thames & Hudson / Harper Design 2015); German version: "Michael Bierut: How to sell products more successfully as a graphic designer, explain things better, make things more beautiful, make people laugh (or cry) - and sometimes even improve the world", Zurich (Niggli 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ^ John B. Thompson - Pictures as accomplices . TIME ONLINE. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
2. ↑ Peter Littger - The BILD of the future . Cicero. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
3. ↑ column - FluentEnglish Accessed on October 28, 2015
4. ^ The devil lies in the detail. The Germans and their English Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved October 29, 2015
5. ↑ The devil lies in the detail published by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, accessed on October 28, 2015
6. ↑ column - The patient DEnglische
7. ↑ n-tv NEWS: Peter Littger. Retrieved May 19, 2020 . 
8. ^ Peter Littger - Hamburg Media School.Retrieved October 28, 2015
9. ^ Peter Littger - author's vita Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Retrieved October 28, 2015
10. ↑ Peter Littger - The Teurorists . TIME ONLINE. Retrieved October 28, 2015.
11. ↑ What the digitization of media means for the role of newspapers in European public life ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The media briefing. Retrieved October 29, 2015.