Irene Meichsner

Irene Meichsner (born 1952 in Bonn) is a German science journalist and author. She works for Kölner Stadtanzeiger, a newspaper in Cologne and as a freelance journalist and book author.

Background

Meichsner has studied philosophy and history at Cologne and Freiburg universities. Her doctorate in 1982 ("Über die Logik von Gemeinplätzen", On the Logic of Platitudes) dealt with platitudes and truisms from a philosophical standpoint.[1][2]

Since 1981 she works as journalist in Cologne. Meichsner is responsible for the science pages of Kölner Stadtanzeiger. Some of her books comprise collections of her newspaper columns.[3][4]

1990 a report of Meichsner about a conflict between two female philosophers at Cologne university gained nationwide coverage. Marion Soreth, professor of philosophy in Cologne previously had accused Elisabeth Ströker, a distinguished Phenomenology (philosophy) expert and professor at the same faculty, of plagiarism in her doctorate. Meichsners article "Hübsch geklaut (Nicely stolen)"[5] was published first in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger and then by the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit. The Bonn Faculty saw Strökers doctorate as being "substantially her own" besides more than 100 scholars sent an open letter [6] in support of her.

1992 Meichsner published a book with coauthors Gerd Rosenkranz and Manfred Kriener (both former die Tageszeitung publishers) about the public relations strategies of the Nuclear Power industry. Greenpeace provided a prologue and endorsed the book in the framework of a larger campaign against Nuclear energy.[7]

Together with Egmont R. Koch, a journalist which had grown famous in Germany with his landmark book ("Seveso ist überall") about the Seveso disaster, Meichnser published 1990 a book about possible abuse of Blood donations in eastern Germany.

Meichsner received 2005 the Georg von Holtzbrinck Price for Science Journalism.[8]

2010 an article of Meichner about purported errors in the IPCC reports in Frankfurter Rundschau was taken down after a demand of Stefan Rahmstorf towards the newspaper.[9] In 2011, a civil case was successfully brought by Meichsner against Rahmstorf. The circumstances gained nationwide coverage in Spiegel Online and Die Welt Online after a critical report of the science journalists association journal WPK Quarterly.[10] [11]

Books
  • Warum kriegt der Specht kein Kopfweh? (Why Woodpeckers do not get headaches, with Nicola Kuhrt). Dumont, Köln 2008. ISBN 3-8321-8062-1
  • Die neue Offensive der Atomwirtschaft. Treibhauseffekt, Sicherheitsdiskussion, Markt im Osten. (the renewed offensive of the nuclear industry - Greenhouse effect, Security, Eastern markets, with Gerd Rosenkranz & Manfred Kriener):Beck, München 1992, ISBN 3-406-34085-7
  • BÖSES BLUT. Die Geschichte eines Medizin-Skandals. (Bad Blood, history of a science scandal, with Egmont R. Koch) Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1990 (²1993), ISBN 3-455-10312-X

References
  1. Irene Meichsner, Die Logik von Gemeinplätzen. Vorgeführt an Steuermannstopos und Schiffsmetapher. 1983
  2. recension by Dietmar Peil in Zeitschrift für Rezensionen zur germanistischen Literaturwissenschaft, Wolfgang Frühwald und Wolfgang Harms, Verlag C. H. Beck Munich, p/1987
  3. Warum kriegt der Specht kein Kopfweh? Kuhrt, Nicola. - Köln : DuMont, 2010 Spektrum 15. April 2008, referenced in Alltag in der Wundertüte, by Christian Wiens
  4. Die Wissenschaft vom Altertum: Mss. zur Sendereihe d. Bayer. Rundfunks, Irene Meichsner, Simona Schwerthöffer, Rüdiger Schwerthöffer Verlag TR-Verl.-Union, 1985
  5. Irene Meichsner: Hübsch geklaut. Kölner Professorin muß um ihren Doktortitel fürchten. In: Die Zeit, Nr. 44/1990.
  6. Information Philosophie 1991, Heft 3 und 4
  7. recension by Udo Leuschner
  8. Holtzbrinck Acknowledgement Archived 2012-01-03 at the Wayback Machine
  9. .Rahmstorf "successfully demanded in February that some German newspapers remove misleading articles from their Web sites.", NY Times, May 24, 2010.
  10. Lead article and pressrelases from PIK and WPK, as well english translations Archived 2012-01-08 at the Wayback Machine WPK online 2011
  11. Verurteilter Forscher, Eklat um Klimaberater der Bundesregierung, Der Spiegel, von Jana Hauschild 1. Dezember 2011
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