Thomas Ortner

Thomas Ortner (born December 29, 1948 in Linz , Upper Austria ; † July 12, 2013 ) was an Austrian journalist .

For 37 years he was an employee in the domestic policy department of ORF TV information and from 1987 to 1989 editor-in-chief of Vorarlberger Nachrichten .

Life

After graduating from the Bundesrealgymnasium Dornbirn in 1968, he began his journalistic career as a reporter for the ORF in Vienna, after having been a reporter for the sports, local and culture departments of the regional newspaper Vorarlberger Nachrichten as a high school student .

At ORF in Vienna, he initially designed contributions for a few months for the weekly TV magazine Horizonte , from 1969 switched to the domestic policy department of Zeit im Bild , which was headed by Gerhard Weis at the time , and returned to the TV magazine area in 1971, where he made contributions to domestic politics produced the weekly TV magazine Querschnitte , directed by Alfred Payrleitner and Hannes Leopoldseder .

In 1975 Thomas Ortner was a domestic political journalist on the founding team of Zeit im Bild 2 under editor-in-chief Kuno Knöbl . One year later he became deputy head of the domestic editorial team and worked regularly as one of the chiefs of the Zeit Service in Bild 2 , which was awarded the " Golden Camera " in spring 1977 for outstanding achievements .

After Alfred Payrleitner returned to ORF, Ortner returned to the documentation sector in 1979 and became one of the authors of the monthly magazine Im Zentrum , which was replaced in 1980 by the political weekly magazine Politik am Freitag . Ortner was a reporter and head of the service for this series of programs directed by Alfred Payrleitner and Peter Rabl .

In 1984 Ortner became a member of the internal political editorial team at the current service and was regularly appointed head of the service of the time in the picture .

In 1987 he succeeded his father Franz Ortner , who was editor-in-chief there from 1969, for two years at Vorarlberger Nachrichten . He then returned to Vienna for ORF, where he worked as a contribution author for the domestic report headed by Johannes Fischer and ended up a few months later in the domestic editorial team of Zeit im Bild , where he was again regularly on duty as head of duty.

Ortner succeeded Helmut Pfitzner as head of the parliamentary editorial office in 1992 . He took over editorial responsibility for the parliamentary magazine Hohes Haus and changed it from a 14-day cycle to a weekly publication. The live broadcasts from Parliament were pushed and greatly expanded by Ortner. In the 1990s, he was able to bring his experiences with parliamentary reporting to bear as the head of large election programs. He was responsible for planning and handling the special election broadcasts for the National Council elections in 1995, 1996 and 1999 as well as for the 1998 federal presidential election and the 1999 EU election.

After eleven years as head of the parliamentary editorial office, Thomas Ortner changed his area of responsibility for the last time in January 2003 and became deputy editor-in-chief Werner Mück , who was responsible for all television information - from Zeit im Bild broadcasts to political magazines. Thomas Ortner was awarded the Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria in September 2003 .

At the beginning of 2007 Ortner retired after 39 years of work due to a serious heart condition. He died in July 2013 of complications from cancer.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ORF presence of “Hohes Haus” ( memento of the original from January 31, 2010 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. 
2. ^ Press release from September 18, 2003
3. ^ Former ORF journalist Thomas Ortner has died. In: Online edition of the Kurier , July 12, 2013. Accessed July 12, 2013.