Wolfgang Büchner leaves Ringier

Ringier wrote this in a statement on Wednesday. The former editor-in-chief of the news agency DPA, as well as Der Spiegel and Spiegel Online, took up his role at Ringier in July 2015. Together with the editors-in-chief and their management teams, he has been responsible for the further development of the publications Blick, SonntagsBlick, Blick am Abend, Blick.ch and Blickamabend.ch. The "top European journalist" Büchner stands for journalistic relevance on the one hand and for the digital transformation of media brands on the other, commented Ringier CEO Marc Walder then the new addition. Büchner was hired to drive the digital transformation. Now he is said to have prematurely terminated his contract, which runs until 2017 - weeks ago.

The NZZ am Sonntag has already published after the Appointment of Christian Dorer as editor-in-chief of SonntagsBlick predicted that Büchner's only option now was to leave. With his personnel decision, Walder had decisively thwarted Büchner's plans for a joint Blick newsroom. The reason: Dorer wants to head his own editorial department. According to a "reliable source," Büchner was not involved in the talks, and Walder conducted the negotiations with Dorer alone. "Büchner has been disavowed in such a way that his only option is to leave," the newspaper quoted a member of the management team as saying.

However, the relationship between Walder and Büchner had "cooled down" for some time. The Ringier boss reproaches Büchner for the fact that operations in the newsroom are not running smoothly, according to reports from the media company. Within the media company, however, there is also criticism of Walder's personnel policy - he is constantly hiring new journalists and publishing managers, first showering them with praise and then dropping them. (hae)