The board of the German public television network ZDF will meet on Friday to decide the fate of its editor-in-chief, Nikolaus Brender.

Brender is under pressure to step aside when his contract expires in March. Although the broadcaster's boss, Markus Schaechter, is in favor of renewing Brender's contract for another five years, a majority of the board aligned with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats wants to drop him.

The push is being led by the conservative premier of the state of Hesse, Roland Koch, who sits on the board of the ZDF.

According to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS), Koch has assembled a majority on the 14-member ZDF board to back him, and Brender's defenders are crying foul.

Public pushback

On Monday, 35 prominent constitutional law professors signed an open letter defending Brender's "professionalism" and accusing those behind the bid to remove him of political interference.

"This is an overt attempt to oust an independent journalist and strengthen the influence of party politics," the letter said. "Quality, independent journalism is in everyone's interests," it added.

On Tuesday, 17 prominent German politicians warned that ousting Brender would amount to a "flagrant violation of the European Charter of Press Freedom" and by Thursday an online petition supporting Brender had gathered nearly 30,000 signatures.

The organizers of the petition compared the campaign against Brender to the kind of political interference prevalent under Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It said Brender was being targeted because of his "independence."

The issue of press freedom is sensitive in Germany, especially in connection with the country's public broadcasters, because of the history of censorship and propaganda under the Nazis.

However, Koch insists the bid to remove Brender is about performance and not politics. In an interview with the FAS he said the broadcaster's ratings had slumped under Brender's stewardship, and a new editor in chief was needed to give the station a boost.

Germany's opposition Social Democrats have appealed to Chancellor Merkel to stop Koch's campaign.

nw/dpa/AFP
Editor: Nancy Isenson