First Female Editor of Bild, Influential German Tabloid, Steps Down
The move closes a chapter on a stunning rise for Ms. Koch, who went from being an unpaid trainee to the paper’s most senior editor in the space of a decade,
and stands against efforts by German media groups to integrate women into senior newsroom and media roles.
Ms. Koch’s departure as top editor of Bild, a mass-market tabloid owned by Axel Springer,
the German publishing giant, comes a little over two years after she took up the post.
BERLIN — Tanit Koch, the first female editor in chief of Bild, Germany’s best-selling newspaper, said on Friday
that she was resigning after an apparent power struggle with another executive at the publication.
“Her personality is completely different from Julian Reichelt, but in terms of journalism or politics they are remarkably similar.”
Ms. Koch will leave her post on March 1, at which point Mr. Reichelt, 37, will take over her responsibilities.
“2017 was shaped by this until my willingness to compromise reached its limits.”
The change comes with Bild grappling with sharply declining readership, a trend seen to a degree across the German newspaper industry.
At issue, German media reported, was a dispute between Ms. Koch, 40, and Julian Reichelt, who heads all Bild titles.
“When two people don’t harmonize professionally, it can be temporarily compensated by compromise,”
Ms. Koch wrote in an email to her colleagues, which was then leaked to German news organizations.
