About Table.Media

Table.Media

Table.Media is a Berlin-based media company publishing professional daily briefings for decision-makers in politics, business and civil society. Founded in 2020 by Sebastian Turner, the former publisher of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, the company produces specialist newsletters — the "Professional Briefings" — on topics such as China, European Union policy, climate, energy, education and security. Delivered by email every morning and through a web portal, the briefings are aimed at an expert readership of ministers' offices, corporate executives, researchers and NGO leaders, and the company is financed through subscriptions rather than advertising.

Overview

Table.Media's product is best understood as an intelligence service in journalistic form: concise, expert-written briefings that tell busy decision-makers what happened overnight in their field, what it means and what to watch next. Each "Table" covers a defined domain — China.Table, Europe.Table, Climate.Table, Education.Table, Security.Table and others — staffed by specialist editors and correspondents. The briefings appear under the Table.Briefings brand in both German and English, and the editorial teams also produce rankings and personnel coverage, such as the annual "Top 100 of the Table" selections of the most influential figures in a policy field.

The business model is deliberately high-end business-to-business journalism. When the first briefing, China.Table, launched in December 2020, a monthly subscription was priced at around 200 euros — a figure that signalled the target audience as clearly as any mission statement: not the general reader, but professionals for whom timely, reliable expertise is worth paying for. The company reports serving more than a thousand paying institutions with a six-figure daily readership across its briefings, though these are company figures rather than independently audited numbers.

History

Sebastian Turner founded Table.Media in 2020 after leaving his post as publisher of Der Tagesspiegel, the Berlin daily he had co-owned and helped reshape. Turner, a media entrepreneur who had earlier founded the journalists' trade magazine Medium Magazin and built the advertising agency that became part of Scholz & Friends, described the new venture as a startup at the intersection of technology and journalism, operated as a subsidiary of his company Trafo MediaTech.

The first product went live on 15 December 2020: China.Table, an early version of a journalistic information service on China covering finance and trade, technology and science, international relations and society. Turner positioned it as quality journalism able to compete with leading media, but aimed at regional experts and decision-makers rather than a mass audience. Further Professional Briefings on other topics followed, building out the portfolio domain by domain.

The founding editorial team paired Turner as publisher with Antje Sirleschtov as editor-in-chief; Sirleschtov, a former Tagesspiegel editor, later moved into a co-publisher role. In January 2024 the company appointed Michael Bröcker — previously editor-in-chief of the Rheinische Post and of Gabor Steingart's The Pioneer, and a familiar face from political talk shows on ARD and ZDF — as editor-in-chief, with Helene Bubrowski as his deputy. Turner credited Sirleschtov with having created the "deep journalism" Professional Briefings segment in Germany in the first place.

Programming and Content

Each Table follows the same basic format: a morning briefing, delivered by email at six o'clock and published on the web portal, that combines overnight news, analysis and a look ahead. The China.Table briefing, for example, covers Chinese politics, the economy, technology, EU-China relations and society, with contributions from specialist correspondents. Europe.Table tracks EU institutions, regulation and member-state politics; other Tables cover climate and energy, education and research, security policy, sustainability and Africa.

Beyond the daily briefings, the editorial teams produce interviews with policymakers and experts, data-driven analysis and the "Heads" personnel coverage — appointments, career moves and influence rankings within each policy community. The annual "Top 100 of the Table" lists, compiled by the editorial teams across categories from politics and business to science and NGOs, have become a recognised fixture in the Berlin policy world.

The journalism is written for insiders: it assumes familiarity with the actors and acronyms of its field and prioritises relevance and reliability over accessibility. The English-language editions extend the briefings to an international readership of China-watchers, EU professionals and corporate strategists.

Coverage and Audience

Table.Media addresses a professional, German-speaking and international audience of decision-makers: ministerial staff, members of parliament, corporate executives, think-tank researchers, foundation officers and journalists on specialist beats. The briefings are read in government offices, boardrooms and newsrooms across Germany and, through the English editions, beyond.

The company describes itself as Germany's leading provider of this type of intelligence and claims more than 1,000 paying institutional clients and around 200,000 daily recipients across its briefings. These figures come from the company and industry reporting rather than independent audit, so they should be read as the company's account of its scale. What is independently documented is the outlet's footprint in the Berlin policy conversation: its scoops and analyses are cited by national media, its editors appear as experts, and its briefings are treated within the capital's political class as required morning reading.

Ownership

Table.Media was founded by Sebastian Turner, who remains its publisher and principal shareholder through his Trafo MediaTech group. Antje Sirleschtov, the founding editor-in-chief, serves as co-publisher. The editorial leadership comprises editor-in-chief Michael Bröcker and deputy Helene Bubrowski, overseeing the specialist editorial teams of the various Tables. The company is privately held, headquartered in Berlin, and financed through subscription revenue — a structure designed to align the business with the interests of its paying professional readership rather than with advertisers.

Digital Presence

The web portal at table.media is the company's publishing platform, carrying the briefings, analyses and rankings, with a metered model that requires registration or subscription for full access. Email remains the primary distribution channel — the 6 a.m. newsletter is the flagship product — supplemented by a growing social-media presence: the company has expanded onto X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads to reach decision-makers where they now consume information. The company's Berlin newsroom, housed in a converted courtyard building in the Mitte district, has grown to around a hundred staff, reflecting how a focused B2B model can sustain a substantial editorial operation. For a B2B publisher, this multi-channel professional presence is the equivalent of a newsstand: the briefings go to the inboxes and feeds of the people whose decisions they aim to inform.

The portfolio of Tables

The company's growth has come from steadily expanding its portfolio of specialist briefings. After China.Table came Tables devoted to European Union policy, climate and energy, education, research, security, sustainability policy, Africa and Berlin politics, among others — each staffed by its own editorial team of domain experts. The China.Table team alone counts around a dozen specialists, reflecting the depth the company promises. English-language editions of the key briefings serve the international audience of diplomats, correspondents and corporate strategists who follow German and European policy from abroad.

This domain-by-domain expansion follows a deliberate logic: rather than competing with general-interest media, Table.Media colonises the expert niches that general newsrooms cover thinly, and it charges professional prices for professional depth. The "deep journalism" label that Turner uses for the model captures the pitch — not faster news, but deeper understanding, delivered before the working day begins. Industry observers have noted the approach as part of a broader German trend toward specialised, subscription-funded media for defined professional communities, a segment in which Table.Media has become the reference provider.