Wolfgang Stock
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Stock ist a German journalist, author, professor and managing partner of Convincet, a business consultancy for public relations.
. He earned a PhD with a thesis on the German European policy at the University of Oxford and completed the Advanced Management Program at the IESE Business School in Barcelona .
In the 1980s, he began his journalistic career as a freelance correspondent for various newspapers in the former Eastern Bloc countries, he reported during the period of martial law in Poland. He established close contacts with opposition intellectuals in the GDR, the Polish trade union Solidarity
and Charter 77
in Czechoslovakia
. He was an employee of one of the deputies of the European Parliament
, Otto von Habsburg
(CSU), and he edited the Paneuropean Journal. At the same time he was involved in the Paneuropean Youth. As an organizer and driver for relief transport of the International Society for Human Rights
, he assisted, in the mid 1980s, Father Jerzy Popieluszko
in his efforts to supply the families of the Polish opposition unter marshall law
. He was the first West European person who arrived in Danzig after the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, leading a transport woth relief supplies for families of Solidarity activist confined in detention camps.
In 1985, the then communist part of Germany (GDR) declared him a criminal person and denied him visas.
Working with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ) as a correspondent
since 1988, he reported, in 1990, on the first free elections in Eastern Germany/GDR. From 1991 on, he was political correspondent with the FAZ in Bonn. From 1996 to 1998 he was news editor of Berliner Zeitung
, from 1998 to 2001 political correspondent for Focus
in the federal capital, first Bonn
and then Berlin
. In 2000, he published the first biography
of chancellor Angela Merkel
. From 2001 to 2003, he was political editor and a managing editor of Germany's leading Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag
.
Stock was professor of Journalism at the Gustav-Siewerth Academy. He presently holds two lecturerships in journalism at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder)
.
In 2004 and 2005 he worked for two semesters representatives of professional journalism professor for history at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen.
From 2003 to 2005 he worked for the media research institute Media Tenor. Since 2005) Stock managing partner of consulting public relations agency Convincet GmbH (former RCC Public Affairs, among other things, the video podcast of Chancellor Angela Merkel and produces initiated.
On 3 September 2010, the Polish state president Bronislaw Komorowski awarded him with the Medal of the European Centre of Solidarity in the German Reichstag
parliament building in Berlin in the presence of the Bundestag's president Norbert Lammert
. He received the medal for organizing the support of Solidarity activist's families and supplying the Solidarity underground with, inter alia, printing presses and "smuggling" of current literature from Germany to Poland, as well as political, dissident literature from Poland to Germany.
Since 2010, Stock and the lawyer and professor Johannes Weberling operate the project Wiki-Watch
within the Study and Research Centre on Media Law of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. Using an own algorithm as well as WikiTrust
, this service evaluates the trustworthiness of Wikipedia articles and provides insights/statistic facts on wikipedia.
In July 2011 Stock was criticised by the press for his ambiguous role as an advisor for the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis
. The author Jörg Wittkewitz of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
claimed, that Stock rewrote articles in the German Wikipedia in favour of Sanofi-Aventis and critically editing articles about the Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen (IQWiG) and its former President Peter Sawicki, while at the same time being the operator of Wiki-Watch
. According to Wittkewitz there was a conflict of interests and a violation of scientific standards as Stock concealed the fact about his job for Sanofis.
Sanofi-Aventis' press office meanwhile confirmed to Spiegel online
that Wolfgang Stock worked an advisor for Sanofi-Aventis since July 2009
Life
Wolfgang Stock studied history and political science at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and the University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. He earned a PhD with a thesis on the German European policy at the University of Oxford and completed the Advanced Management Program at the IESE Business School in Barcelona .
In the 1980s, he began his journalistic career as a freelance correspondent for various newspapers in the former Eastern Bloc countries, he reported during the period of martial law in Poland. He established close contacts with opposition intellectuals in the GDR, the Polish trade union Solidarity
Solidarity
Solidarity is a Polish trade union federation that emerged on August 31, 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. Solidarity reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 congress...
and Charter 77
Charter 77
Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was...
in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. He was an employee of one of the deputies of the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
, Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
(CSU), and he edited the Paneuropean Journal. At the same time he was involved in the Paneuropean Youth. As an organizer and driver for relief transport of the International Society for Human Rights
International Society for Human Rights
The International Society for Human Rights is an international non-governmental, non-profit human rights organization with Participative Status with the Council of Europe and is a member of the Liaison Committee of the Non-Governmental Organisations at the Council of Europe...
, he assisted, in the mid 1980s, Father Jerzy Popieluszko
Jerzy Popieluszko
Jerzy Popiełuszko was a Roman Catholic priest from Poland, associated with the Solidarity union. He was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, who were shortly thereafter tried and convicted of the murder...
in his efforts to supply the families of the Polish opposition unter marshall law
Marshall Law
Marshall Law was an Australian television series, which aired on the Seven Network in 2002, starring Lisa McCune and Alison Whyte as lawyers and sisters.- History :...
. He was the first West European person who arrived in Danzig after the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, leading a transport woth relief supplies for families of Solidarity activist confined in detention camps.
In 1985, the then communist part of Germany (GDR) declared him a criminal person and denied him visas.
Working with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
(FAZ) as a correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
since 1988, he reported, in 1990, on the first free elections in Eastern Germany/GDR. From 1991 on, he was political correspondent with the FAZ in Bonn. From 1996 to 1998 he was news editor of Berliner Zeitung
Berliner Zeitung
The Berliner Zeitung, founded in 1945, is a German center-left daily newspaper based in Berlin, published by Berliner Verlag. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since unification. In 2003, the Berliner was Berlin's largest subscription newspaper—the weekend...
, from 1998 to 2001 political correspondent for Focus
Focus (German magazine)
Focus is a German weekly news magazine published in Munich and distributed throughout Germany. It is the third-largest weekly news magazine in Germany. It is considered conservative and leaned towards economic liberalism.- Overview :...
in the federal capital, first Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
and then Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. In 2000, he published the first biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...
. From 2001 to 2003, he was political editor and a managing editor of Germany's leading Sunday paper Welt am Sonntag
Welt am Sonntag
Welt am Sonntag is a German national Sunday newspaper published by Axel Springer AG, and established in 1948. Its head office is in Berlin, and it has local editions for Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Düsseldorf....
.
Stock was professor of Journalism at the Gustav-Siewerth Academy. He presently holds two lecturerships in journalism at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
.
In 2004 and 2005 he worked for two semesters representatives of professional journalism professor for history at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen.
From 2003 to 2005 he worked for the media research institute Media Tenor. Since 2005) Stock managing partner of consulting public relations agency Convincet GmbH (former RCC Public Affairs, among other things, the video podcast of Chancellor Angela Merkel and produces initiated.
On 3 September 2010, the Polish state president Bronislaw Komorowski awarded him with the Medal of the European Centre of Solidarity in the German Reichstag
Reichstag (building)
The Reichstag building is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire. During the Nazi era, the few meetings of members of the...
parliament building in Berlin in the presence of the Bundestag's president Norbert Lammert
Norbert Lammert
Norbert Lammert is a German politician . He has been the President of the Bundestag, the German parliament, since 2005.-Early Life:...
. He received the medal for organizing the support of Solidarity activist's families and supplying the Solidarity underground with, inter alia, printing presses and "smuggling" of current literature from Germany to Poland, as well as political, dissident literature from Poland to Germany.
Since 2010, Stock and the lawyer and professor Johannes Weberling operate the project Wiki-Watch
Wiki-Watch
Wiki-Watch is a German University project for transparency of Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles, aimed especially at media professionals.Wiki-Watch is a free software application . This tool automatically assesses the reliability of Wikipedia articles in English and German. It produces a five-level...
within the Study and Research Centre on Media Law of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. Using an own algorithm as well as WikiTrust
WikiTrust
WikiTrust is a software product that assesses the credibility of content and author reputation of wiki articles using an automated algorithm. WikiTrust is a plug-in for servers using the MediaWiki platform, such as Wikipedia. When installed on a MediaWiki website it enables users of that website to...
, this service evaluates the trustworthiness of Wikipedia articles and provides insights/statistic facts on wikipedia.
In July 2011 Stock was criticised by the press for his ambiguous role as an advisor for the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis
Sanofi-Aventis
Sanofi S.A. is a multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France, the world's fourth-largest by prescription sales. Sanofi engages in the research and development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products for sale principally in the prescription market, but the...
. The author Jörg Wittkewitz of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
claimed, that Stock rewrote articles in the German Wikipedia in favour of Sanofi-Aventis and critically editing articles about the Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen (IQWiG) and its former President Peter Sawicki, while at the same time being the operator of Wiki-Watch
Wiki-Watch
Wiki-Watch is a German University project for transparency of Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles, aimed especially at media professionals.Wiki-Watch is a free software application . This tool automatically assesses the reliability of Wikipedia articles in English and German. It produces a five-level...
. According to Wittkewitz there was a conflict of interests and a violation of scientific standards as Stock concealed the fact about his job for Sanofis.
Sanofi-Aventis' press office meanwhile confirmed to Spiegel online
Spiegel Online
Spiegel Online , the online version of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, is one the most visited news websites written in the German language.- Company :...
that Wolfgang Stock worked an advisor for Sanofi-Aventis since July 2009
Publications
- Wolfgang Stock, Helmut Müller-Embergs, Heike Schmoll: Das Fanal: das Opfer des Pfarrers Brüsewitz und die evangelische Kirche. Ullstein, Frankfurt/Main und Berlin 1993, ISBN 3548366163.
- Wolfgang Stock, Kai DiekmannKai DiekmannKai Diekmann is a German journalist. From 1998 until 2000 he was editor of Welt am Sonntag . Since January 2001 he is chief editor of Bild. He is also a member of the executive board of the Turkish daily Hürriyet.- Life :Diekmann grew up in Bielefeld...
, Ulrich Reitz: Roman HerzogRoman HerzogRoman Herzog is a German politician as a member of the Christian Democratic Union, and served as President of Germany from 1994 to 1999...
: Der Neue Bundesprasident Im Gespräch. Lübbe-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1994, ISBN 340461299X. - Wolfgang Stock, Kai Diekmann, Ulrich Reitz: Rita SüssmuthRita SüssmuthRita Süssmuth is a German politician and a member of the Christian Democratic Union .From 1985 to 1988, Süssmuth was Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. She was a member of the German Bundestag from 1987 to 2002...
im Gespräch. Lübbe-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1994, ISBN 3404613279. - Wolfgang Stock, Jürgen Aretz: Die vergessenen Opfer der DDR. Lübbe-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1997, ISBN 340460444X.
- Wolfgang Stock: Angela Merkel: eine politische Biographie. Olzog-Verlag, München 2000, ISBN 3789280380 (1989–2000); Neuauflage 2005, ISBN 3-7892-8168-9 (1989–2005).