Publishing veteran Bernd Buchholz warns industry is 'fighting for survival'
He announced his plans in the podcast "Thadeusz in Depth" on RBB's Radio3, as turi2—published, like our website, by media specialist publisher Oberauer—reports.
"I'm absolutely determined to do it. You just can't keep all these stories to yourself," Welte told host Jörg Thadeusz. Taken together, his experiences would make for "a very, very gripping novel."
In past literary portrayals of the industry, he often felt that "people with post-adolescent fantasies" were writing about them. The reality, he said, was different. While the sector may have "earned an unimaginable amount of money in the 1990s," those days are over. "The publishing industry is fighting for survival, and no one wants to admit it. I think we need a dose of realism."
Welte ties his novel plans to a broader call for action: society needs a "comprehensive public debate" on the media's role as the fourth estate. "We are the oversight body for the other branches of government in this country, but we increasingly lack the financial means to fulfill that mandate," he argued.
In the podcast, the executive also discussed working with family within the publishing house and his relationship with publisher Hubert Burda. They still address each other with the formal "Sie." Burda, he said, is "a man of refined taste," as well as "an incredibly curious, dynamic, knowledge-hungry entrepreneur"—and "the trailblazer of digitization for the entire German publishing industry."
Welte described the generational shift in the company as an evolutionary process, not a rupture. He has always seen his own role as the "last line of defense" for the editorial teams. When he departed in December, there were tears. "I think the reason so many people genuinely like me is because I fight for journalism, for a free press."
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