Tamedia sues Der Spiegel over Roshani text
The Zurich media company Tamedia has filed a lawsuit against the German news magazine Spiegel. This was triggered by the text "Me too" by guest author Anuschka Roshani on February 4. Tamedia considers the text and images to violate personal rights.
A Tamedia spokesman confirmed on Thursday in response to a request from the Keystone-SDA news agency a report by the Republic which had reported on the filing of the lawsuit.
The action against the Mirror and author Roshani was filed on Wednesday, the Tamedia spokesperson said. In particular, the allusions to the Harvey Weinstein case made in the text and images were, in Tamedia's view, violating personal rights.
Serious bullying allegations
The former Magazine-Editor Roshani had written in a guest article in the Mirror has made serious allegations of bullying against her former supervisor Finn Canonica. She had been a victim of abuse of power for years.
A regime of bullying and sexism had prevailed under Canonica. He had verbally belittled her and, among other things, called her "the un-fucked one". She accused her former employer Tamedia of inaction because, according to her own statements, she had contacted various internal departments several times in vain.
Tamedia commissioned an external investigation, which concluded that a significant part of the allegations, in particular the allegation of sexual harassment, could not be confirmed. In general, the allegations were in part insufficiently substantiated.
However, the company also acknowledged failures. In a management culture that is expected at the publishing house, such a conflict should not have arisen in the first place. The clarification in the case had taken too long.
"Perhaps out of line in tone"
The former MagazineCanonica, the company's editor-in-chief, rejected the accusations. If he had made a mistake, it was in 2014, when he had "perhaps adopted a wrong tone" among the staff and "communicated harshly," the 57-year-old said in an interview.
The reason was primarily the structures and the Tamedia Group at the time, which had imposed strict cost-cutting measures on him. He was under pressure. In retrospect, he described the swastikas that he had scribbled on the manuscripts of female employees in Germanisms as "extreme stupidity.
