About Medium Magazin

Medium Magazin

Medium Magazin is a German-language professional journal for journalists, published by the Salzburg-based Medienfachverlag Oberauer. Appearing six times a year with its editorial office in Berlin, it has served the journalism profession since April 1986, when the first issue appeared as a self-published project of students and young journalists. The magazine is best known for its annual "Journalist of the Year" awards, which honor outstanding journalistic work across categories and rank among the most noted professional prizes in German-language journalism. Its readership consists of journalists, editors, and media professionals across print, broadcast, and digital media. In the German media-trade press, Medium Magazin holds the position of the profession's own magazine: written by journalists for journalists, with a focus on the craft, working conditions, and professional debates of journalism itself.

Overview

Medium Magazin für Journalistinnen und Journalisten presents itself as the professional magazine of the journalism trade. Published six times a year, it addresses journalists across all media genres with reporting on the profession itself: craft and quality debates, working conditions and freelance economics, newsroom organization, media policy, and the technological transformation of journalistic work. Occasional special editions — such as Umweltjournalist, Wissenschafts- und Medizinjournalist, Food- und Agrarjournalist, and Kulturjournalist — serve specialist journalist communities, and since 2007 the annual "Die Journalistin" edition has addressed women in journalism.

The magazine's most visible institution is its annual awards program. The "Journalist of the Year" honors, awarded across categories including entertainment, politics, culture, and investigative reporting, recognize outstanding journalistic achievements and generate the profession's annual debate about quality and standards. The awards have occasionally made headlines beyond the trade — as in 2020, when an entertainment award to Klaas Heufer-Umlauf was revoked after reporting revealed staged authenticity in his programs. The ceremony and the surrounding coverage make the awards season the magazine's highest-profile editorial moment each year, drawing attention from across the German-language media landscape.

The readership is the journalism profession itself: editors, reporters, freelancers, and journalism students in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. According to the 2022 media data, the print run stands at 19,500 copies; the circulation is not IVW-audited. The publisher, the Medienfachverlag Oberauer of Salzburg, also publishes the specialist media journals Wirtschaftsjournalist, Der Österreichische Journalist, Schweizer Journalist:in, and the media service Newsroom.de, making Medium Magazin part of a dedicated journalism-trade publishing program.

History

The first issue of Medium Magazin appeared in April 1986 as the self-published project of the student Sebastian Turner, who served as the first editor-in-chief. The founding team — including Stefan Kornelius, Oliver Schrott, Annette Milz, Kai Diekmann, Holger Ohmstedt, and Andreas Spaeth — consisted entirely of pupils, students, and trainees; the initial print run was 2,000 copies. The magazine deliberately addressed young journalists, giving the profession's next generation its own editorial platform at a time when the established press offered few such voices.

The title's development tracked the professionalization of its own publisher. From 1988 the magazine appeared quarterly; from 1992, bimonthly. In 1991 the editorial office moved to Frankfurt, and the Austrian media specialist publisher Oberauer of Salzburg acquired the rights to "medium magazin", which grew with the brochure "Tipps für Journalisten". In 1994 the "Journalisten-Werkstatt" was launched as a supplement. The editorial leadership changed over the decades: Stefan Kornelius became editor-in-chief in 1989, followed by Annette Milz in 1990; from January 2021 Alexander Graf led the editorship, and in early 2024 he moved to the media portal Übermedien, succeeded by Frederik von Castell, who had previously been an editorial manager at Übermedien.

The awards program became the magazine's defining public institution, and the title's fortieth anniversary in 2026 marked four decades of continuous publication — from a student self-publishing project to the established professional journal of German-language journalism.

Coverage and Content

The editorial coverage of Medium Magazin is organized around the journalism profession itself. Craft and quality debates form the core: how reporting, interviewing, research, and storytelling are practiced and taught, and where the profession's standards are under pressure — from staged authenticity in entertainment formats to the challenges of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. Working conditions are a standing topic: freelance economics, newsroom employment, the situation of young journalists, and the structural transformation of media companies.

Media policy and industry structure form the second pillar: the economics of publishing houses and broadcasters, the regulatory framework of press and broadcasting, and the debates about the future of public-service and private media. The magazine reports on personnel changes in the industry's leadership, on new journalistic formats and startups, and on the technological shifts — from digital publishing to AI-assisted production — that reshape journalistic work.

The special editions serve the profession's specialist communities: environmental journalists, science and medical journalists, food and agriculture journalists, and culture journalists each receive dedicated editions, while "Die Journalistin" addresses the specific situation of women in journalism. Across all formats, the editorial perspective is that of practitioners writing for practitioners — the magazine's authority rests on its embeddedness in the profession it covers.

Organization and Ownership

Medium Magazin is published by the Medienfachverlag Oberauer, based in Salzburg, Austria — a specialist publisher for media-trade journals whose program includes Wirtschaftsjournalist, Der Österreichische Journalist, Schweizer Journalist:in, and the media service Newsroom.de. The editorial office (Redaktionssitz) is in Berlin. The editor-in-chief is Frederik von Castell, who succeeded Alexander Graf in early 2024; Graf had led the editorship since January 2021 before moving to the media portal Übermedien.

The magazine appears six times a year. According to the publisher's 2022 media data, the print run is 19,500 copies; the circulation is not audited by the IVW. The commercial model combines subscriptions within the journalism profession with advertising from the media industry's service providers — training institutions, technology vendors, and publishers addressing the journalistic audience — and with the visibility and sponsorship environment of the annual awards program.

The awards themselves are organized by the magazine's editorial team and have become a fixed institution of the German-language media calendar, with juries drawn from the profession honoring colleagues across the categories. The ISSN of the magazine is 0178-8558. Beyond the awards, the magazine's long-form interviews and newsroom reports give the profession a mirror: how leading editors run their newsrooms, how investigative teams organize major research projects, and how the business models that fund journalism are evolving. This practitioner-to-practitioner perspective is the title's enduring editorial capital — the reason generations of journalists have treated Medium Magazin as their professional home medium since the student self-publishing days of 1986.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is mediummagazin.de, where the publisher presents the title, its history — including the detailed chronicle of the years 1986 to 2006 — and its subscription and awards information. The site serves as the service portal for the profession: journalists find the magazine's content, the awards program, and the publisher's specialist media offerings.

The Medienfachverlag Oberauer's digital infrastructure supports the title alongside its sister publications: Newsroom.de, the publisher's media service, provides continuous online coverage of the media industry that complements the magazine's six annual print issues. The awards program generates the title's most visible digital moments each year, as nominations, winners, and the ensuing professional debates circulate through the journalism community's social networks. The magazine thus operates as a cross-media professional institution: the print title for depth, the digital channels for continuity, and the awards for the profession's public self-reflection.