One thing is certain: this week’s personnel quake at the “Bild” top management represents a “new quality of unpredictability” on the part of the Springer boss, as employees in “Spiegel” lament. The employees quoted should hardly mean that as a compliment for Döpfner – even if the Springer boss himself might read it like this: “I’m unpredictable, in the best sense,” he recently boasted in a portrait in “New York Magazine”. In a dpa interview in January, Döpfner praised his “self-reflection in order to quickly correct the course if an idea develops in the wrong direction”.
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The latter statement referred to the “Bild TV” project, which had started under the leadership of Julian Reichelt and in its former form “in retrospect was not the right idea,” as Döpfner admitted in January. The dismissal of Claus Strunz, whom Reichelt had brought into the editor-in-chief as the person responsible for the video offering, is therefore not surprising. Alexandra Würzbach joined the editor-in-chief in March 2021 on the occasion of a short-term release from Julian Reichelt. She is considered to have little digital affinity and once called herself an “old print sow” in a “Bild” documentary. And her reputation as a reporter who sometimes goes too far precedes her. There had also been internal rumors about Würzbach’s departure from the editor-in-chief for some time.