Advisory Board member Christoph Gerlinger resigns

The investor thus takes responsibility for the controversial thesis paper. Frank Thelen wants a "fair partnership" between start-ups and the press.

The member of the advisory board Junge Digitale Wirtschaft Christoph Gerlinger has drawn consequences from the anti-press thesis paper and has resigned from his position. He was responsible for the passages that called for the restriction of press freedom so that IPOs of startups would receive less critical coverage. "I would like to apologize to all journalists for this, deeply regret it and take responsibility for the fact that an inappropriate and misleading wording of mine from an early partial concept of the position paper ended up in the final, published version due to a technical error," Gerlinger wrote in a post on LinkedIn. "Our mistake as an advisory board is that our internal control mechanisms failed," the statement from the Young Digital Economy Advisory Board continues. Due to the switch to agile working, correction loops would not have worked. Together with the ministry, the advisory board now wants to review internal processes.

The advisory board had uploaded a position paper on the website of the Federal Ministry of Economics. Among other things, it says that there is "IPO and new-economy bashing" in the press. The state should ensure "balanced reporting". One demand in the catalogue of measures: "Discipline the press to provide factual, correct and complete information". The free media should also be obliged to report on small IPOs.

Distancing from the position paper

Criticism came from all sides: The German Journalists Association called the demands "completely absurd". Economics Minister Peter Altmaier, whom the committee is supposed to advise, disapproved of the demands. He ordered the paper deleted from the ministry's website. "In a personal conversation, I accepted the resignation of Mr. Gerlinger. I thanked him for his voluntary work on the advisory board," Altmaier said in a statement.

Other members of the advisory board and co-authors of the position paper, including Alex von Frankenberg, chairman of High-Tech Gründerfonds Amorelie founder Lea-Sophie Cramer also apologized. Cramer herself did not attend the crucial advisory board meeting and "did not get further involved in the development of the published version of the paper," she told the Handelsblatt. That, however, was an omission that should not occur with such important topics and positions, among which her name was at the end. Von Frankenberg also admitted that he had not read the paper again before it was published.

Frank Thelen calls for "fair partnership"

Frank Thelen, who is not a member of the advisory board, also finds the paper "one hundred percent off," as he told the Handelsblatt said. At the same time, however, Thelen calls for a "fair partnership between startups and the media" if "a good ecosystem is to be built in Europe." Thelen continued, "The press often tears startups apart unnecessarily and that's just not ideal." He said he would like to see more joy and enthusiasm for startups - including in the media landscape. Thelen's statements were criticized by the German Journalists Association on Twitter. "We don't need a 'fair partnership' between editorial offices and start-ups, but freedom of the press. And we have the press code for journalistic work."