Kath.ch replaces entire Board of Directors
Published: Friday, Jun 21st 2024, 10:50
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The Catholic Media Center replaced its entire board at an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday evening. None of the previous four members of the association, which manages the kath.ch website, stood for re-election.
Urs Brosi, General Secretary of the umbrella organization of the national churches (RKZ), confirmed the decision on Friday at the request of the Keystone-SDA news agency. This had previously been reported by tagesanzeiger.ch and blick.ch. Four of the newly elected board members were not present at the election, but two of the former members were.
Simon Spengler, Head of Communications at the Catholic Church in the Canton of Zurich, only resigned from the board on Wednesday after 15 years. In his letter of resignation, which is available to Keystone-SDA, he harshly criticized the circumstances surrounding the election of the new editor-in-chief Christian Maurer.
Those responsible at the SBK and the RKZ had sabotaged and publicly disavowed the evaluation work and the Board's proposal. This had destroyed his trust in those responsible. Maurer's appointment had already led to the resignation of a board member in April.
Tensions for years
Brosi said he understood Spengler's disappointment. However, the criticism was not justified. After all, the Board's exchange was not exclusively related to the issue of abuse in the Church or the appointment of the new Editor-in-Chief. It was about a longer conflict between the media center and its clients, the SBK and the RKZ.
Mediation had already become necessary in 2022 due to the increasing "tabloidization" of kath.ch under the former editor-in-chief. And in recent months, the tension has increased even further. That is why the time has now come to "put new heads in place", said Brosi. However, her goal is not a website with a bishop-obedient course, but an independent medium that presents various positions in an argumentative manner.
©Keystone/SDA
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