Biography Sonia Seymour Mikich

Sonia Seymour Mikich

Sonia Seymour Mikich was born in Oxford on 13th July 1951 and spent her early childhood in London. From 1970 to 1972 she worked as a trainee reporter on the regional daily newspaper the Aachener Volkszeitung, before going on to study Politics, Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Aachen (RWTH Aachen) from where she graduated with a Master's Degree (M.A.) in February 1979. From 1979 to 1981 she served as an academic assistant for the Arnold-Gehlen-Research Group at the Institute for Sociology at the RWTH Aachen. Throughout this period she also worked as a free-lance journalist contributing regular to a range of magazines, daily newspapers and anthologies.

From 1982 to 1984, Sonia Seymour Mikich was engaged as trainee with the regional public broadcasting station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), before subsequently working as an editor, moderator and reporter for the station's Department of Foreign Affairs (TV). In 1992 she became foreign correspondent in Moscow and from July 1995 onwards head of the bureau - the first female appointee. She distinguished herself by intensive reporting on various conflicts and wars in the Caucasus region, expecially Chechnya. From April 1998 to December 2002 she was head of the ARD Bureau in Paris. Throughout her time in France, Sonia Seymour Mikich covered the Kosovo war and focussed on the regions of France (Bretagne, the Basque country, Provence, Corsica). From January 2002 Sonia Seymour Mikich was head of the investigative magazine “MONITOR”. During this time she introduced films on globalisation and established film essays about socio-political topics as fairness, democracy, growth and anti-americanism. She is a regularly commentator for “ARD-Tagesthemen”, a nationwide news show.

In October 1998, Sonia Seymour Mikich was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) for her work as ARD correspondent in Russia. In recognition of her on-the-spot coverage of events in Chechnya, Afghanistan and other crisis regions and her successful tenure as head of the ARD's Moscow Bureau, Sonia Seymour Mikich was awarded the Kritikerpreis 2001 (Critic's Prize). In 2007 she was awarded the Marler Fernsehpreis für Menschenrechte (Human Rights Prize) for "Warum wollen deutsche Behörden eine Iranerin in den Tod abschieben?" (MONITOR) and 2006 for "Der Tod in der Zelle - Warum starb Oury Jalloh?" (die story).

In 1986 she edited an anthology on Simone de Beauvoir entitled "Der Wille zum Glück". Her second book "Planet Moskau - Geschichten aus dem neuen Russland" ("Planet Moscow - stories from New Russia") has been published in 1998 by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. In 2007 Stephan Weichert and Christian Zabel portrayed her amongst other political journalists in their book "Die Alpha-Journalisten - Deutschlands Wortführer im Porträt".

Since October 2011 Sonia Seymour Mikich is head of National Affairs and Documentaries department and responsible for “MONITOR”, “die story” and “Menschen hautnah” as well as for documentataries for the First German Channel (“Das Erste”).