Richard Gutjahr

Training and affiliations

Gutjahr is an alumnus of the German School of Journalism (Deutsche Journalistenschule) in Munich where he studied from 1993-1998. During this time he also studied political science and communications studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He completed his studies with a degree in journalism. He took part in an exchange of the Centre de formation des journalistes of Paris and between 1998 and 1999 in a semester program of the American University in Washington, D.C.

From 1992 to 1996, he worked as a news editor, live reporter and presenter for Radio Gong, followed by a stint at Bayern 3 from 1996 to 1999. For the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gutjahr worked as a freelancer and cartoonist. From January 1999, he spent five months as an intern for the CNN office in Washington. He subsequently worked for the national German public television channel Das Erste and its regional outlet for Bavaria, Bayerischer Rundfunk, where, among other things he hosted a program called "Live aus dem Alabama", a live broadcast from a popular concert venue.

Gutjahr is currently working at the office of the head of the TV side of Bayerischer Bundfunk, and he hosts Rundschau Night (Rundschau-Nacht). From 14 May to 7 June 2012 Gutjahr developed a SocialTV format for Rundschau with alternating co-hosts, including Daniel Fiene, Sascha Lobo and Sandra Riess. He also writes a weekly column since mid-2010 in the Abendzeitung. He also writes for other newspapers, including the Berliner Tagesspiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Coverage of the Egyptian Revolution

Gutjahr traveled to Cairo during the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and used social media for reporting, when all he could use was his smartphone, because the internet had been blocked by the Egyptian regime.

Web platform against lobbyists

Gutjahr was a co-initiator of LobbyPlag, a web platform aimed at publicizing the influence of lobbyists on politicians in connection with the proposed EU Data Protection Regulation. The research results, which may prove among other things that parliamentarians have written off large parts of their bills from lobbies, made international headlines.

In Nice and Munich

On July 14, 2016, Gutjahr was on vacation in Nice, when the city was struck by a terrorist attack Nice. He reported on Twitter and in the ARD night magazine (Nachtmagazin) and the Bayerischer Rundfunk. He made available to the WDR German television network a video that apparently shows the beginning of the attack; he explicitly objected to publishing the material on social networks, because he wanted to leave it to professional journalists to decide which images should be shown.

On July 22, 2016 Gutjahr was reporting live for the national news program Tagesschau and other media about the shooting rampage at the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum in Munich. Originally en route to the Bayerischer Rundfunk, he said that he was alerted by his daughter about the incident and arrived as one of the first reporters at the scene. His daughter Thamina Stoll twittered footage of the shooting, and was interviewed internationally.

His coincidental presence at events gave rise to conspiracy theories, saying his presence at both events could not have been coincidental. Gutjahr has pressed charges against these allegations, which he sees mostly motivated by antisemitism against his wife.

Personal life

Gutjahr is married to the former Israeli Knesset member and ex-intelligence officer Einat Wilf since 2007. Gutjahr has a son (b 2010) and a daughter (born 1994).

Awards

Jointly with Rundschau editorial director Peter Marten Gutjahr received the Ernst Schneider Award for Business Journalism in 2006. The newspaper Die Zeit named him in early 2012 the Networked Journalist of the Year 2011; Medium Magazin (media magazine) called him the 2011 "Newcomer of the Year". In 2013, the Grimme Institute honored Richard Gutjahr for his personal achievement. It was the first time in the history of the Grimme Online Awards that such a prize was given to an individual.

Writings