Kurt Imhof is dead
Kurt Imhof, a sociology professor from Zurich, died Sunday morning in Zurich at the age of 59. He succumbed to cancer at the University Hospital of Zurich. He was regarded as a champion of media quality and a combative figure of his time.
In October, he presented the fifth Yearbook of Media Quality, which he had launched, and came to the conclusion that the quality of the Swiss media was continuing to erode. He cited the fact that low quality was being rewarded as the root of the problem and warned that informed democracy was at stake.
"We are not only losing a critical and outstanding researcher and scientist, but also a friend who has accompanied and supported some of us for more than half a lifetime," Mark Eisenegger, Co-Institute Director of the Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society (fög) at the University of Zurich, told the SDA news agency.
Not afraid of difficult topics
His death is a loss for science, but also for society. Imhof had not shied away from "researching difficult topics and courageously going public with unpleasant findings so that society would learn, for example, that the quality of the media was declining". This ideal, which Kurt Imhof embodied, will be continued by the fög.
However, the fact that the news of Kurt Imhof's death became public so quickly, before all his relatives could have been informed, was upsetting, said Eisenegger. This also encourages the fög to continue its research into the quality of the media with full vigor.
Media as a common thread in the curriculum vitae
Imhof initially completed an apprenticeship as a structural draughtsman and went on to complete his Matura on the second educational path. He studied history, sociology and philosophy at the University of Zurich, researched "Social Crises and the Creation of New Development Patterns" for his degree and completed his doctorate eight years after starting his studies with a dissertation on the "Discontinuity of the
Modernity".
He worked his way up to a professorship from the bottom up: He went through periods as an assistant, was a lecturer and lecturer, National Fund project manager and much more. Since 2000, Imhof has held the Chair of Journalism Studies and Sociology at the University of Zurich and headed the fög until 2012.
The media and their development, their transformation, run like a red thread through his life. As a person who did not shy away from public debate, he caused offense - but also earned praise. The reactions on Twitter on Sunday evening were accordingly. "Didn't often agree with Kurt Imhof - but his admirably stubborn mission for good media will hopefully be sustainable one day," tweeted Philipp Landmark, editor-in-chief of the St. Galler Tagblatt. From the Blick editorial team, newspaper editor Thomas Ley wrote: "I once got to know Kurt Imhof as a professor who gave great lectures. And now I'll even miss his scolding of the media."
Media star of the professorial crowd
In a portrait on his 50th birthday, the former weekly magazine Facts called him the "media star of the professorial crowd", who was always on hand with a "poppy instant message", while his "academic colleagues took days to turn a sentence". Whether on television, on the radio or in print media - Imhof was incisive.
"In Kurt Imhof, sociology and media studies have lost a committed personality who curiously explored and openly commented on social events without mincing his words," said his colleague Ueli Mäder from the Institute of Sociology at the University of Basel on request. In his last emails, Imhof emphasized energetically and impressively how he wanted to fight cancer. (SDA)
