According to a press release on Thursday, she will be working as head of news from September and is leaving the editorial office at her own request. She will head the news desk together with Jens Schneider. Accusations of plagiarism against her were already refuted in the spring.
Förderl-Schmid was confronted with accusations of plagiarism in February. These concerned, on the one hand, her handling of citing source material in journalistic texts and, on the other hand, her dissertation. The “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber – on behalf of the right-wing populist portal “Nius”, as it turned out – had examined the work submitted to the University of Salzburg and, according to his own account, identified “plagiarism fragments”. Following the accusations, Förderl-Schmid suspended her position as deputy editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on February 5 and asked the University of Salzburg to examine her doctoral thesis for the corresponding allegations.
At the beginning of April, the results of the review of her dissertation by the University of Salzburg were finally available: According to this, “no relevant scientific misconduct” was found. In May, the report by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, which had appointed an external commission, followed. Föderl-Schmid had occasionally violated journalistic standards, but it was far from a scandal, said “SZ” editor-in-chief Wolfgang Krach at the time.
“Together with the editorial team, we are looking forward to working closely with Alexandra Föderl-Schmid again,” said the two “SZ” editors-in-chief Krach and Judith Wittwer. Alexandra Föderl-Schmid said in a press release: “I am looking forward to returning to the editorial team.”
