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Journalist, managing director, AI consultant
Thirty years in television, eight of them as managing director of a regional TV station, three full-time AI training programs in 2026. Since February 2026, I have been advising companies, associations and public institutions under the name polisMEDIA.
A technology consultant explains what an AI can do, but often doesn’t know why staff then leave it unused. I came to AI through four stages, in this order.
Four stages
Journalism and TV
Thirty years of telling difficult stories so that viewers keep watching, including those who didn’t want to hear about them.
Management
Eight years at the head of a TV station. I know what it takes to push a good idea through in an organization that doesn’t want it.
Change management
Shaping change in a company: the topic of my degree thesis in 2009, today part of every AI rollout.
AI consulting
Three certificates, all graded “very good”, and 20 self-built tools I work with every day.
From the first newspaper article in 1991 to polisMEDIA
- 1991
First articles for the Mannheimer Morgen
Then a freelance author for the SWR Landesschau Rheinland-Pfalz at the Mainz studio, 1994 to 1998.
- 1995
Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen
Freelancer, traineeship in 1998, then editor, host and duty editor. As project lead for corporate productions, thirteen years for the corporate communications department of BASF SE.
- 2000
Teaching and training
Adjunct lecturer and instructor for television and online journalism, crisis communication, PR and media training.
- 2009
Diplom-Betriebswirt
German degree in business administration. Thesis on shaping a change process in a media company, grade 1.3 (1 is the best grade). Before that, I helped set up and was responsible for introducing a digital newsroom system at the station, the software in which the newsroom plans and writes its stories.
- 2017
Managing director, sole director from 2019
The audience changed its habits faster than the station could be rebuilt. During this time, I brought social media into the newsroom, built the media library and apps, developed new formats and led the team through a restructuring.
- 2024
Editor-in-chief and head of programming
At RNF Pro GmbH until broadcasting ended on January 31, 2026. The Landesanstalt für Kommunikation, the state media authority, expressly certified the team’s full journalistic standards for this final phase.
- 2026
polisMEDIA
Since February 2026, consulting on AI tools, change, communications and media, based in Heidelberg with an office in Bautzen.
2025: the decision to learn AI instead of commenting on it
At 54. I have been using AI tools since 2022: language models, image and voice generation, automated workflows. In the training programs, I learned how they work technically.
AI analyst
358 of 360 points. How language models work, where they fail and what data has to look like for AI to produce something useful from it.
AI consultant
354 of 360 points. Introducing AI in a company: law and data protection, cost-effectiveness, roles and responsibility.
AI agents with n8n
90 of 90 points. Building automated workflows with n8n, a program that chains together steps from different applications. Wherever someone has to make a decision, a person makes it.
Above all, I learned to distrust AI results, check sources and recognize where a model sounds convincing and is still wrong. All 70 course days and projects are on my course map, a searchable overview of the three training programs (in German).
Course map (in German)I use the tools I recommend myself
Alongside consulting, I set up a dog school, with its own customer management, a customer area and an AI trainer that answers from the school’s expertise. Add to that the tools polisMEDIA itself works with, for the newsroom, video calls, workshops, booking and quotes.
- 20 tools in use
- run on my server in Germany or directly on my computer
- designed by me, programmed in dialogue with AI
Five media awards from the Landesanstalt für Kommunikation
In the categories feature report, background, video journalism, hosting and regional reporting.
The piece impressively demonstrates how responsible local journalism works in an exceptional situation. With nuance and sensitivity, and without sensationalism, the reporting puts the events into context, gives those affected a voice and provides orientation for the people in the region.
LFK jury, 2026, on “Amokfahrt in Mannheim, der Tag danach” (the day after the car-ramming attack in Mannheim)- 2026: local and regional TV reporting
- 2014: video journalism, “Auf den Spuren des Internet of Things” (tracing the Internet of Things), on a topic hardly anyone took seriously at the time
- plus feature report, background and hosting
Lessons from ice hockey
I was a professional ice hockey player, with Mannheimer ERC and EC Bad Nauheim. That explains more about the way I work than any list of certificates: you get back up, you pass the puck to where your teammate is about to be, and nobody wins alone.
- Developing strategy and putting it into practice myself
- Understanding technology and explaining it to the people who work with it
- Based in Heidelberg, office in Bautzen, working throughout Germany, English as a working language too
Get to know me, half an hour is enough.
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