Chris­toph Schwennicke beco­mes Mana­ging Direc­tor

The for­mer edi­tor-in-chief and mana­ging direc­tor of the poli­ti­cal maga­zi­ne Cice­ro will lead Corint Media tog­e­ther with Mar­kus Run­de. The expan­si­on of the manage­ment board marks the start of inten­si­fied efforts to enforce press publishers’ ancil­la­ry rights.

Press Release
Ber­lin, 2021-05-18

Short­ly befo­re a far-rea­ching law pro­tec­ting ancil­la­ry rights for news publishers comes into effect, the Coll­ec­ti­ve Manage­ment Orga­ni­sa­ti­on (CMO) Corint Media is streng­thening its team. Chris­toph Schwennicke, the for­mer publisher, edi­tor-in-chief and mana­ger of the poli­ti­cal maga­zi­ne Cice­ro, will lead Corint Media tog­e­ther with Mar­kus Run­de with imme­dia­te effect.

The expan­si­on of the manage­ment at this time marks the start of Corint Media’s efforts to enforce its publishers’ rights more rigo­rous­ly on plat­forms that domi­na­te the digi­tal sphe­re, such as Face­book and Goog­le. Corint Media’s aim is, on the one hand, to enforce appro­pria­te remu­ne­ra­ti­on of the­se rights, while on the other, to regu­la­te the con­di­ti­ons of access to the­se plat­forms in a way that ensu­res the per­ma­nen­cy of the free press and the pre­ser­va­ti­on of its important func­tions in a demo­cra­cy. Schwennicke, a trai­ned jour­na­list and for­mer mana­ging share­hol­der of Res Publi­ca Ver­lag (Cice­ro and Mono­po­ly) will take over Corint Media’s exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on.

Schwennicke, who was born in 1966, work­ed for nine years as edi­tor-in-chief and mana­ging direc­tor of Cice­ro, after various posi­ti­ons that included lea­ding roles in the edi­to­ri­al office for par­lia­men­ta­ry affairs of the Badi­sche Zei­tung, Süd­deut­sche Zei­tung and the Spie­gel. He is one of Germany’s most renow­ned poli­ti­cal jour­na­lists and a regu­lar guest on poli­ti­cal talk shows, and radio andt­e­le­vi­si­on press con­fe­ren­ces. As a jour­na­list, he has recei­ved num­e­rous awards, inclu­ding the Theo­dor Wolff Pri­ze, the Hen­ri Nan­nen Pri­ze and the Media Pri­ze of the Ger­man Bun­des­tag.

I am very much loo­king for­ward to this new, huge and important task,” says Schwennicke. “The ques­ti­on of whe­ther digi­tal jour­na­li­stic pro­ducts are ade­qua­te­ly and fair­ly remu­ne­ra­ted by users is decisi­ve for the con­tin­ued exis­tence of qua­li­ty jour­na­lism, the safe­guar­ding of our industry’s busi­ness model and the ongo­ing gua­ran­teed working basis of the pro­fes­si­on that I love and have prac­ti­sed with pas­si­on for deca­des. Ulti­m­ate­ly, the press is a sys­te­mi­cal­ly rele­vant sec­tor for plu­ral demo­cra­cy. The new law and a fresh awa­re­ness of the value of intellec­tu­al pro­per­ty in the digi­tal world are buil­ding momen­tum. Tog­e­ther with my excel­lent col­le­ague Mar­kus Run­de, I would like to make use of this.

Dr Tors­ten Ross­mann, Chair­man of the Super­vi­so­ry Board of Corint Media, said: “With Chris­toph Schwennicke, we are appoin­ting a com­mit­ted jour­na­list and advo­ca­te of demo­cra­cy to take on the grea­test chall­enge for the future of the Ger­man press and broad­cas­ting com­pa­nies – that is, the dis­pu­te with glo­bal digi­tal plat­forms such as Goog­le and Face­book over appro­pria­te and fair remu­ne­ra­ti­on for use of con­tent from publishers and broad­cas­ters. We are deligh­ted to wel­co­me him onto the suc­cessful Corint Media team.

Back­ground: Corint Media

Corint Media is a Euro­pean com­pa­ny in the pri­va­te media indus­try. It mana­ges the copy­rights and ancil­la­ry rights of almost every Ger­man and seve­ral international pri­va­te tele­vi­si­on and radio sta­ti­ons as well as of num­e­rous press publishers.

Media com­pa­nies repre­sen­ted by Corint Media include TV sta­ti­ons such as Sat.1, Pro­Sie­ben, RTL, WELT, SPORT1, CNBC, Euro­s­port, VOX, MTV and CNN, radio sta­ti­ons such as ANTENNE BAYERN, radio ffn, Klas­sik Radio, Radio Ham­burg, Hit­Ra­dio-FFH, RPR1 and RTL RADIO, and press publishers such as Axel Sprin­ger, DuMont Medi­en­grup­pe, Ver­lags­ge­sell­schaft Madsack, Augs­bur­ger All­ge­mei­ne, Aschen­dorff Medi­en­grup­pe, Rhei­ni­sche Post Medi­en­grup­pe and Mün­che­ner Zei­tungs-Ver­lag.

Corint Media is one of 13 CMOs aut­ho­ri­sed in Ger­ma­ny and comes under the super­vi­si­on of the Ger­man Patent and Trade­mark Office (DPMA).

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