(new: details and background.)
HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) – There is a change at the head of the news magazine “Der Spiegel”: Steffen Klusmann (57) is giving up the post of editor-in-chief. The longtime “Spiegel” author Dirk Kurbjuweit (60) takes over immediately. The media house announced this on Thursday in Hamburg.
In the past there had been rumors about power struggles at the top of the “Spiegel”. Since Wednesday, more and more has been leaked out, the pressure has been increasing. The media house initially did not comment on “rumours”. On Thursday evening it was said: Klusmann was leaving the editor-in-chief “by mutual agreement” after the implementation of far-reaching reforms in recent years. The 57-year-old has been editor-in-chief since early 2019.
Klusmann was quoted in the statement as saying, among other things: “We have achieved a great deal together. Recently, however, management and I have all too often failed to reach agreement on key strategic issues – which has now resulted in my departure.”
“Spiegel” Managing Director Thomas Hass said: “We owe Steffen Klusmann a great deal of thanks for his groundbreaking work over the past five years, above all for merging the print and online editorial departments and the successes in our digital subscription strategy .” One could not have imagined a better person in recent years. One regrets “that in the end it was not possible to continue our always very good cooperation for the future.”
For the successor, it was important for the shareholders and management to advance ongoing reform projects with reliable stability and to intensify the prioritization of the digital offering.
Co-managing director Stefan Ottlitz said of the new editor-in-chief Kurbjuweit that he had “a clear picture of how our journalism, both digital and print, needs to be further developed between speed and depth, and he has shown how to do this both as an author and in management positions Sharpens the profile of “Spiegel”. Our pay strategy depends on further brand profiling, and its success is essential for our journalistic and economic independence.”
Kurbjuweit has worked for the magazine for a long time. In 24 years he was already deputy editor-in-chief from February 2015 to December 2018, since then he has been an author in the capital city office. The award-winning 60-year-old has also authored more than ten books.
According to Medienhaus Clemens Höges (62), Melanie Amann (45) and Thorsten Dörting (48) are among the chief editors of the news magazine, which has been one of the largest national media in Germany for decades. You were also in the editor-in-chief before that – with Klusmann.
The “Spiegel”, which Rudolf Augstein founded in 1947, has a sold circulation of a good 700,000 copies. The Spiegel Group achieved sales of 267 million euros in 2022, which is a slightly declining result. The advertising market, which is so important for media companies, has been weakening for some time and has also dampened the figures at the Spiegel Group. There was a plus in the distribution of journalistic offers.
The Hamburg-based media company has been expanding its digital strategy for some time and has bundled the paid service under the “Spiegel+” brand, which now has more than 300,000 subscribers. The strategic brain behind it is Managing Director Ottlitz, who moved years ago from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” to the “Spiegel” and gained more and more influence in the Hamburg publishing house.
Klusmann’s start as editor-in-chief in 2019 was bumpy, because it coincided with the time when the magazine was dealing with what was probably the biggest scandal about forged texts by the previously celebrated “Spiegel” author Claas Relotius. Leading the editorial team during this difficult time earned Klusmann respect. Another ongoing topic was the merging of the online and print editorial areas, which is also related to salary structure issues.
At “Spiegel”, the employee limited partnership (KG) is a powerful player with influence in the house. She holds half of the shares in the publishing house and can have a say in top jobs. Not all employees are part of the investment company, which also leads to resentment because not everyone feels represented by it per se. A letter from the ranks of the editors on Wednesday criticizing the KG leadership and Spiegel management, which is to be interpreted as a sign of support for Klusmann, revealed this conflict again.
There have always been changes at the top of “Spiegel” in the past. Most recently, in April 2021, after internal friction, Barbara Hans, who was responsible for the digital offering, left the editor-in-chief chaired by Klusmann.
In 2019, Klusmann himself followed Klaus Brink Bäumer, who is now program director at the public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). At that time, Klusmann switched to the top job within the Spiegel publishing group from “Manager Magazin”, which he had been editor-in-chief since November 2013. Before that, the native of Karlsruhe had been deputy editor-in-chief of “Stern” for a few months at competitor Gruner + Jahr.
His earlier professional positions included, with interruptions, his position at the “Financial Times Deutschland” since 1999. In 2004 he became editor-in-chief there. The newspaper (Gruner + Jahr) was discontinued in 2012.
In an interview with the German Press Agency at the end of 2021 on the 75th anniversary of “Spiegel”, Klusmann said: “You should price in the fact that you can quickly tear yourself apart at the top of the “Spiegel” when you accept the job. Otherwise you do it out of sheer fear either nothing at all or everything wrong.”
Klusmann performed differently than some of his predecessors, who were perceived more as prominent figures in public. In the dpa interview he said: “The role of the editor-in-chief can be interpreted very differently. There are editors-in-chief who are the chief commentators of their medium. Then there are those who see themselves more as representatives who are out and about a lot, sitting on podiums and on talk shows. And then there are the newspaper editors who run the business, help set topics, edit, make titles. I always saw myself primarily as a newspaper editor.” It is not yet known where Klusmann could move to in the future./rin/DP/men