NZZ board of directors does not want a change of position in terms of content
The Board of Directors of the NZZ Media Group has issued its first statement regarding the appointment of a new editor-in-chief at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The Board of Directors announced on Thursday that at no point was there any question of a change in the NZZ’s editorial stance.
Against this background, various candidates are being evaluated as successors to Editor-in-Chief Markus Spillmann. One candidate was Markus Somm, editor-in-chief and publisher of the Basler Zeitung, writes Etienne Jornod, chairman of the NZZ board of directors, in a statement. Somm's closeness to Christoph Blocher was known. The board of directors was concerned about the associated problems. Various soundings had drawn a positive picture of Somm's candidacy. However, the process was then broken off: "There were things that didn't fit together, in terms of the matter and the expectations."
The Board of Directors will now evaluate journalists internally and externally for the position of Editor-in-Chief. The NZZ editorial team will also submit its proposals and has sufficient time to do so. The board is looking for a personality with great journalistic competence and civic-liberal opinion leadership, both internally and externally. Committing the NZZ more strongly to a national conservative course had never been under discussion.
NZZ Editor-in-Chief Markus Spillmann is leaving the newspaper at the end of the year. Behind the departure are differing views on how the Group should reorganize its journalistic management in the NZZ business unit. This division includes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the NZZ am Sonntag and the online portal Nzz.ch. (SDA)
