Sonia Seymour Mikich was born in Oxford in 1951, grew up in London, studied political science, sociology and philosophy. In 1982 she started her training and work at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). She worked as a correspondent in Moscow from 1992 and became the first woman to head the ARD studio there in 1996. From 1998 to 2002 she headed the ARD studio in Paris. She then became editor-in-chief and host of the famous political television magazine Monitor. In 2011 she became head of National Affairs of WDR; and from 2014 to 2018 she was editor-in-chief of all WDR Television and thus responsible for national and foreign affairs, investigative formats, documentaries, business and sports reporting, the ARD breakfast television and tagesschau news reports. She also hosted the Presseclub and was a regular commentator on tagesthemen news programme. – In 1998 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for her work as an ARD correspondent in Russia. In 2001 she was awarded the Critics' Prize 2001 for her reporting from Chechnya, Afghanistan and other crisis regions as well as for her time as director of the ARD studio in Moscow. In 2007 she was awarded the Marl Television Prize for Human Rights. In 2012 she was named Politics Journalist of the Year by medium magazin. – She is the editor of a book about Simone de Beauvoir (Der Wille zum Glück / The Will to Happiness) and has published several non-fiction books (Planet Moskau – Geschichten aus dem neuen Russland / Planet Moscow – Stories from the New Russia as well as Enteignet: Warum uns der Medizinbetrieb krank macht / Expropriation: Why the medical business makes us sick). Since autumn 2018 she hosts the political debate programme Ausreden – zuhören! (Shut up – Listen!) at Schauspielhaus Bochum.
Past roles:
- Moderation in Ausreden – zuhören!