The work entitled “From Monopoly to Market, Ten Years of Dual Broadcasting System in Germany” was reviewed by the “Commission for Securing Good Scientific Practice” at the University of Salzburg at the request of Förderl-Schmid himself. Based on the report, the university “as the responsible authority discontinued the proceedings regarding the annulment of the assessment of the dissertation in accordance with Section 73 of the University Act,” it is said.
Förderl-Schmid was confronted with accusations of plagiarism from February onwards. These concerned, on the one hand, her handling of citing source material in journalistic texts and, on the other hand, her dissertation. As it turned out, the “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber – on behalf of the right-wing populist portal “Nius” – checked the work submitted to the University of Salzburg and, according to his own account, located “fragments of plagiarism”.
Following the allegations, Förderl-Schmid suspended her role as deputy editor-in-chief of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on February 5th and asked the University of Salzburg to examine her doctoral thesis for the relevant allegations. Shortly afterwards it became known that the former “Standard” editor-in-chief was missing. A day later, the 53-year-old Upper Austrian was found alive under an Inn bridge in Braunau and taken to hospital with severe hypothermia.
Weber described the University of Salzburg’s statement that there was “no relevant scientific misconduct” in Föderl-Schmid’s work as “scientifically untenable” on his blog on Thursday. It is a “break with more than 120 years of scientific history”. His own “detailed report” shows that at least 157 places were plagiarized. Weber therefore identified a “whitewashing” that had taken place at “incredible speed”. He noted that he “of course” waited until Föderl-Schmid was healthy again and was in the public eye before publishing it. But: “The decision of the University of Salzburg and the now expected second shitstorm against my investigative work are forcing me to publish today.”
An external commission was set up at the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” to take a closer look at Föderl-Schmid’s journalistic work and especially how she dealt with sources. The “SZ” editor-in-chief announced on Thursday that the review of the journalistic texts was still ongoing. “This is about clarifying the allegations that Alexandra Föderl-Schmid handled sources improperly when writing the texts and thereby violated journalistic standards. We are confident that the commission will complete its work in the coming weeks and that we can make a final assessment on this basis.” The “SZ” editor-in-chief called the fact that the University of Salzburg had completed the audit a “good result for our colleague “.