Didn’t the awarding of consultancy contracts for a new media company at RBB go correctly? The station is now putting the plans on hold, but is confident that it will be able to clear up the allegations.
Amid allegations against Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), the public broadcaster is temporarily putting its plans for a new building in Berlin on hold.
Part of the allegations is the practice of awarding consultancy contracts for the media house, which is to be built by 2026 and in which the editors should be able to work together in a more networked manner.
RBB director Patricia Schlesinger said on Monday in a message from the broadcaster: “In view of the allegations made against me personally and the broadcaster, we have committed ourselves to full clarification. For us, this means not continuing any processes whose proper start is currently being publicly questioned.”
At the same time, the director said that in order to ensure clarity, the management had decided to temporarily interrupt the planning and implementation work for the media company. “We will wait until the allegations have been fully clarified before taking any new steps.” Everyone should be sure that they are participating in a project that has been set up correctly, without a doubt,” added Schlesinger, who is currently also the chair of the entire ARD community.
Crossed boundaries in professional relationships?
The whole case was recently started by reports from the online portal “Business Insider”. The broadcaster then launched an independent investigation, and a law firm is involved. Results are not yet available.
The core of the reporting raised the question of whether certain limits could have been exceeded in the professional relationship between director general Schlesinger and the RBB board of directors and whether conflicts of interest were dealt with too laxly.
The broadcaster rejected allegations and also emphasized on Monday: “The RBB is confident that the allegations can be cleared up.”
In addition to the public broadcaster, Messe Berlin is also part of the reporting. Entrepreneur Wolf-Dieter Wolf is both the chairman of the RBB administrative board and the chairman of the supervisory board of Messe Berlin. A few days ago it was announced that Wolf would be retiring from his position on the RBB control committee until the investigation had been completed. He too had denied the allegations against him. The state parliament in Brandenburg wants to deal with the RBB case on Tuesday. dpa
