Bascha Mika (born 17 January 1954) is a German journalist and publicist. From 1998 to July 2009, she was editor-in-chief of ''

Die Tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, “The Daily Newspaper”), is counted as being one of modern Germany's most important newspapers and amongst the top seven. taz is stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a cooperative-own ...

'' and has held the same post at Frankfurt Rundschau since April 2014. At ''Die Tageszeitung'', Mika was the only female editor-in-chief of a national newspaper in Germany.

Biography

Born Barbara Mika in

Komprachcice Komprachcice is a village in Opole County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Komprachcice. It lies approximately south-west of the regional capital Opole. Notable peo ...

, near

Opole Opole (; german: Oppeln ; szl, Ôpole) ; * Silesian: ** Silesian PLS alphabet: ''Ôpole'' ** Steuer's Silesian alphabet: ''Uopole'' * Silesian German: ''Uppeln'' * Czech: ''Opolí'' * Latin: ''Oppelia'', ''Oppolia'', ''Opulia'' is a city loc ...

in Upper Silesia in 1954, her family moved to

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

in 1959. Mika completed a bank apprenticeship after graduating from school. She spent three years working in

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

in Aachen. Mike then went to University in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

and

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

, where she studied Africa, philosophy, German and ethnology. During college Mika worked in radio and various newspapers. In her thirties, she changed her career to journalism. In 1988, Mika began working for ''

''. Ten years later, she became one of the editors-in-chief in 1998 and the following year Mika became the sole editor-in-chief. She left the paper in mid-July 2009. Mika has worked as a professor at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

since 2007 and was joint head of the cultural journalism course until March 2014. Since leaving that position Mika has been editor-in-chief of the ''

Frankfurter Rundschau The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' (FR) is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. It is published every day but Sunday as a city, two regional and one nationwide issues and offers an online edition (see link below) as well as an e-pa ...

''. Initially she was working with Arnd Festerling but since March 2019 it has been with Thomas Kaspar. Mika wrote a biography of Alice Schwarzer which was published in 1998. The work created some controversy due to her ambivalent analysis of Schwarzer. Despite her services to the women's movement Mika claimed Schwarzer also showed contempt for women and was somewhat hostile. Mika was a member of the Media Council of the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Institute from 2003 to 2009. She is also on the board of trustees of Journalists Network and from 2018 she's been on the Board of Trustees for the Peace prize,

Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels is an international peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (English: ''German Publishers and Booksellers Association''), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Paulskirche in ...

Awards

*1994 Emma Journalist Award *2012 Luise Büchner Prize for Journalism *2017 Hedwig Dohm certificate

Bibliography

* * * * * * *

References and sources

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mika, Bascha 1954 births Living people German journalists German women journalists German newspaper journalists People from Opole County Die Tageszeitung people German newspaper editors Silesian-German people Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts