Neue Zürcher Zeitung prevails against Kleinreport in court
The Neue Zürcher Zeitung went all the way to the Zurich High Court over an article on the industry portal Kleinreport - and was proven right. Kleinreport must publish a counterstatement.
In September 2018, the industry platform Kleinreport had reported that a feature editor was NZZ but with side noises. Among other things, the text said that the editor had gotten into an argument with the wife of editor-in-chief Eric Gujer. His wife also works at the NZZ.
The head of the feature section René Scheu had no choice but to "pull the rip cord," wrote the Small Report and thus insinuated that Scheu had worked towards the employee's dismissal. In addition, the editor had missed the "support of the department management", wrote the Small Report.
The NZZ did not want to accept this article as it was. She criticized that there was no question of a lack of support and a dispute with the boss's wife. The head of department had also not "pulled the rip cord" or otherwise acted on the dismissal of the employee. Rather, it was correct that the employee had left of her own free will.
The NZZ sued and demanded a counterstatement before the district court. The court approved the request in October 2018 and ordered Kleinreport to publish the counterstatement. However, the industry platform stood by its representation and took the case to the higher court - primarily because it was ordered to pay the court costs and did not want to pay them.
However, the court is on the side of the NZZas can be seen from the recently published ruling. The insinuation that a department head "pulled the ripcord", i.e. worked towards the dismissal of an employee, weighs heavily. "This puts the operation of the NZZ in an extremely unfavorable light."
Whether Gujer was reacting in a shamefully petty manner to personal slights or to slights of his immediate environment was not to be decided in these proceedings. However, the insinuation that this is the case is, according to the Supreme Court, injurious to the NZZ.
The ruling of the higher court is legally binding. The industry portal must therefore definitely pay the costs of the proceedings. The counterstatement had already been published earlier, editor-in-chief and publisher Ursula Klein told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
Gone are the legal disputes between Small Report and NZZ not yet. According to Klein, the publisher is now demanding that she delete four more texts. However, she is not prepared to do this. In addition, the former editor of the feature section, which was the subject of the disputed article, has filed an injunction against the publisher with the Hamburg Regional Court. Small Report obtained. (SDA)
