Monika Piel (born 9 April 1951 in Bensberg) is a German television journalist and radio journalist.

Life and career

Piel studied

Business economics Business economics is a field in applied economics which uses economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze business enterprises and the factors contributing to the diversity of organizational structures and the relationships of firms wit ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. Afterwards she studied Jura and

Oriental Studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studie ...

without graduating. During her studies she worked as an assistant at the panel discussion ''Der Internationale Frühschoppen'' under Werner Höfer. From 1979 to 1989 she worked as an editor and presenter for the current radio magazines of WDR 2. From 1982 to 1984 she worked for WDR as a freelance journalist in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. From 1989 to 1993 Piel was a radio correspondent for economic and financial policy at the WDR studio in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

. She then spent a year as head of the radio programme group for business, agriculture, environment and transport. In 1994 she was appointed as an editor-in-chief of radio and became a program director at WDR 2. From the end of 1997 to 2007 she was radio director of WDR and from 2001 to 2003 she headed the ARD Radio Commission. On 1 April 2007, she took over as the new director of WDR the successor to Fritz Pleitgen. When she was elected to the Broadcasting Council, she received 38 votes with two dissenting votes and two abstentions. Piel had no competitors after two candidates,

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

editor-in-chief

Nikolaus Brender Nikolaus Brender (born 24 January 1949) is a German journalist. He was the commissiong editor of the German public broadcasting station ZDF between 2000 and 2010. Life Brender was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, then Allied-occupied Germany, Fre ...

and NDR Justiciar Werner Hahn, had withdrawn. From 2007 to 2013 she worked as director of German broadcaster WDR. She prematurely terminated her employment on 30 April 2013 for health reasons. She had

sleep disorder A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder affecting an individual's sleep patterns, sometimes impacting physical, mental, social, and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sle ...

s and

tachycardia Tachycardia, also called tachyarrhythmia, is a heart rate that exceeds the normal resting rate. In general, a resting heart rate over 100 beats per minute is accepted as tachycardia in adults. Heart rates above the resting rate may be normal ...

and was diagnosed with

arteriosclerosis Arteriosclerosis, literally meaning "hardening of the arteries", is an umbrella term for a vascular disorder characterized by abnormal thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the walls of arteries; this process gradually restricts th ...

in January 2013. From 2011 to mid-2016, she was CEO of the Cologne Cathedral Cultural Foundation and has been a member of the Board of Trustees since August 2016. Piel is married to the WDR 2 radio representer Roger Handt. They have a daughter and live in

Voreifel The Voreifel ("Fore-Eifel" or "Pre-Eifel") is the name of a settlement area in the southern part of the Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a term that grew out of the local speech. The region of the Voreifel includes the tow ...

External links

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Monika Piel at WDR
2010

FAZ, 27 January 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piel, Monika 1951 births Living people People from Bergisch Gladbach German broadcast news analysts 20th-century German journalists 21st-century German journalists 20th-century German women journalists 21st-century German women journalists German women television journalists ARD (broadcaster) people Westdeutscher Rundfunk people 20th-century German women 21st-century German women