Sonia Seymour Mikich

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Sonia Seymour Mikich (2017)

Sonia Seymour Mikich (born July 13, 1951 in Oxford , United Kingdom ) is a German journalist , television presenter and editor-in-chief of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). From 2002 to 2012 she was the presenter of the political magazine Monitor .

Life

Sonia Seymour Mikich was born in Oxford as the daughter of a Serb ( Serbian : Mikić) who emigrated to England after the Second World War and a German and grew up in London . From 1970 to 1972 she volunteered at the Aachener Volkszeitung and then studied political science, sociology and philosophy at RWTH Aachen University with a master’s degree (February 1979). From 1979 to 1981 she was a research assistant in the Arnold Gehlen Research Group at the Institute for Sociology at RWTH Aachen University. During this time she was already working as a freelance journalist for magazines, daily newspapers and collections of articles. From the early 1980s through the 1990s she published articles in the feminist magazine Emma .

From 1982 to 1984 she volunteered at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Subsequently, she worked as an editor, presenter and reporter in the international television program group of the WDR. Mikich worked in Moscow as a correspondent from 1992 onwards and distinguished herself through reports from war and conflict areas (see Russia reporting in Germany ). In 1996 she became the first woman to head the ARD studio there. From April 1998 to December 2002 she headed the ARD studio in Paris. Mikich made the Kosovo war and the regions of France the focus of her reporting. From January 2002 she was editor-in-chief of Monitor .

From October 2011 Mikich was head of the domestic program group at WDR and was therefore responsible for the programs Monitor , the story , Menschen hautnah and documentaries for ARD. In February 2014, the WDR Board of Directors decided to appoint Sonia Mikich as "Editor-in-Chief of Television" to succeed Jörg Schönenborn . She took office on May 1, 2014.

As a commentator, she is a regular guest on ARD Tagesthemen . She moderates u. a. the " press club ".

On November 17, 2016, she and Spiegel editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbäumer conducted the only TV interview with US President Barack Obama on his last trip to Germany.

Mikich lamented the increasing “depoliticization” of journalism, the tendency that analysis plays less and less of a role, as well as a “pseudo-authentic subjectivism” that emphasizes the personal concern of the reporter.

Ellen Ehni succeeded Mikich as editor-in-chief of television at WDR in September 2018.

Since November 2018, Mikich has moderated the socio-political discussion series Excuses - Listen! At the Schauspielhaus Bochum . Five times per season, experts from science, business, culture, politics and philosophy debate current socio-political issues under Mikich's leadership. In the 2018/2019 season the series was entitled “Home and Identity”; In the 2019/2020 season, the main theme is “70 years of the Basic Law - what is it worth to me?”.

criticism

In December 2017, Mikich commented on a photomontage with the newly appointed Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz with the Twitter account of Tagesthemen , which according to the ARD concept is given to another person from the broadcasting landscape every week: "Why does he look like a punk up there?"

The contribution led to a "little shitstorm " on Twitter and in the Austrian press. a. the insult of the Austrian Chancellor by the editor-in-chief of a fee- financed broadcaster was criticized via the Twitter account of a news broadcast. A few hours later, Mikich tweeted that she was sorry if someone was offended by her “irony”: “No Nazi comparison meant. At the same time I forgive all insults against myself, journalism, Merkel, daily topics that I have read. "

Awards

  • 2018: "Lifetime Achievement" (industry magazine medium magazin )
  • 2012: Political Journalist of the Year 2012 ( medium magazine )
  • 2012 "Press Duck" for excellent journalistic work (awarded by the Aachen Press District Association in the German Association of Journalists)
  • 2007: Marl Television Prize for Human Rights for the Monitor contribution Why do German authorities want to deport an Iranian woman to her death? and 2006 for Death in the Cell - Why Did Oury Jalloh Die ? (the story).
  • 2001: German Critics' Prize for international reporting from Chechnya , Afghanistan and other crisis areas as well as for her time as director of the ARD studio in Moscow
  • Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (October 8, 1998), for her work as ARD correspondent in Russia
  • 1996: Telestar named Best Reporter Documentation / News for Mascha, 15, has a lot of guys and Leonid, 16, has a machine gun

Works

Filmography

  • Love Moscow. WDR 3, 1993
  • Fratricide - Putsch 93rd ARD, 1993
  • Fly away like Icarus - dropouts in the new Russia. WDR, 1993
  • Mascha, 15, has a lot of guys ... youth in Russia. WDR, 1995
  • The holy warrior and the cellar women. ARD, 1995
  • The duel - Yeltsin against Zyuganov. ARD, 1996
  • My Moscow. WDR, 1996
  • The coronation - portrait of Boris Yeltsin for re-election. ARD, 1996
  • Tsar Boris and the arsonists - Chechnya war and its causes. ARD, 1996
  • Jobless but well armed - the army in crisis. NDR, 1997
  • Arctic Circle 3rd class. WDR, 1997
  • Moscow Neon, Moscow Velvet - Farewell. ARD, 1997
  • Grail seekers and troubadours - Pyrenees trip. ARD, 1998
  • The singer - Corsica trip. ARD, 1999
  • Storm and light, trip to Brittany. ARD, 2000
  • Trail of the condor, Peru travel. ARD, 2000
  • Brittany trip. WDR, 2000
  • Corsica trip. WDR, 2000
  • Flight to death - Concorde crash. ARD, 2000
  • Provence on side roads. ARD, 2001
  • Provence: blue-white-red dream. ARD, 2001

literature

  • Stephan Weichert, Christian Zabel (ed.): The alpha journalists. Portrait of Germany's spokesman. Halem, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-938258-29-3 , pp. 280–289

swell

Web links

Commons : Sonia Mikich  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Program history of MONITOR
  2. ↑ Emma : "And suddenly I'm half Serbian"
  3. ↑ Mikich becomes WDR editor-in-chief , online article in EMMA, accessed on February 1, 2014
  4. ↑ Conversation with Sonia Mikich: “Click numbers, celebrities or money? This is bullshit " Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 31, 2018, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Excuses - listen! - Schedule - Schauspielhaus Bochum. Retrieved February 27, 2020 .
  6. ^ Anne Diekhoff: You are a journalist to the grave , Hamburger Abendblatt from January 17, 2019
  7. ↑ a b c Alexander Krei: WDR editor-in-chief apologizes for the Pimpf tweet , DWDL.de , December 18, 2017.
  8. ^ Carsten Korfmacher: "Staats-Redakteurin" insults Austria's Federal Chancellor , Nordkurier , December 19, 2017.
  9. ↑ Uli Tückmantel: In the Twitter trap: WDR editor-in-chief calls Sebastian Kurz "Pimpf" , Westdeutsche Zeitung , December 18, 2017.
  10. ^ Scandal: Bad Hitler comparison against Kurz , Die Presse , December 21, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Tagesthemen" account calls Sebastian Kurz on Twitter "Pimpf" , Der Standard , December 18, 2017.
  12. ↑ Outrage on the net: German state editor calls our Chancellor "Pimpf"! , Wochenblick , December 18, 2017.
  13. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Mikich, Sonia Seymour
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mikich, Sonia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Oxford , UK