Leipzig, 14 August 2025. This year, the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig honours Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi with the "Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media". The Prize recognizes media professionals and institutions whose work serves freedom of the press and freedom of expression with great personal commitment. It will be awarded on 8 October 2025 at the Media Campus Villa Ida in Leipzig, the headquarters of the Media Foundation, and is endowed with 10,000 euros. In addition, the Foundation honours for the first time a lifetime achievement with the awarding of the "Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media" to the Hamburg-based journalism researcher Professor Michael Haller as an honorary prize.
Ihsane El Kadi is one of the most well-known Algerian journalists critical of the government. "Throughout his long career, Ihsane El Kadi has witnessed all the highs and lows of his country’s recent history: from the first democratic awakening in October 1988, to the brutal civil war of the 1990s, followed by the return of an autocratic regime, and then the peaceful popular uprising of 2019 - whose hopes for democratic change were brutally crushed by the regime," says Stephan Seeger, Managing Director of the Media Foundation. "Throughout these years, El Kadi has seen it as his duty to bear witness to this history, to resist oppression, and to fulfil his responsibilities toward society. The fight for press freedom is a path strewn with obstacles, but all the more valuable for building a free society. Ihsane El Kadi has followed this path with great determination for many years," Seeger adds.
Alongside Ihsane El Kadi, Professor Michael Haller will be honoured with the "Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media" on 8 October in Leipzig. With this honorary award, presented for the first time in the Prize’s 25-year history, the Foundation recognizes the life's work of Haller, who held the professorship for General and Specialized Journalism at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University from 1993 to 2010. "Michael Haller’s name stands like no other for quality journalism, for the exemplary combination of theory and practice in journalistic higher education, for journalistic responsibility and journalistic ethics. "With his expertise, he quickly helped journalism at Leipzig University to achieve a high reputation in academic teaching and research beyond Germany's borders after reunification," said Stephan Seeger, explaining the jury's decision to award the honorary prize.
"Even at 81 years of age, Michael Haller continues to convey the importance of quality journalism for democratic societies with undiminished energy and intellectual acumen, currently primarily through projects on information and media literacy such as the successful 'Fit for News' program. Michael Haller has been closely associated with our Media Foundation for more than two decades, in particular with the founding of the 'Institute for Practical Journalism Research' in 2003, which continues to operate today as non-profit 'European Institute for Journalism and Communication Research'," Seeger continued.
Ihsane El Kadi was born in Tripoli, Libya, in 1959, the son of an Algerian independence activist. While studying economics at the University of Algiers, El Kadi was involved in a clandestine leftist organization founded by trade unionists and students. In 1980, he took part in the "Berber Spring," which led to his first prison sentence of eight months the following year. His journalism career began in 1982 within the state media monopoly. Following the democratic opening of 1988 and the launch of independent press outlets, El Kadi became a well-known professional figure in Algeria and later in other Maghreb countries.
During the Algerian civil war between 1991 and 2002, El Kadi notably served as editor-in-chief of the French-language newspaper La Tribune (1994–1996), then worked as a freelance journalist for various media outlets in Algeria and abroad. In 2010, together with other journalists facing similar censorship in the print press, he founded an online newspaper. Maghreb Émergent focused on economic news in the Maghreb. It was followed in 2014 by the private web radio station Radio M. These two professional media outlets, considered among the few independent voices in Algeria, were open to all viewpoints - including those highly critical of the government and its policies. This editorial stance was maintained in 2021 and 2022, amid a sharp decline in press freedom in Algeria as authorities sought to end the "Hirak", the peaceful popular movement for democratic change. Radio M, and its director Ihsane El Kadi in particular, thus became a direct target of repressive censorship.
In April 2021, for a political analysis article on the "Hirak", Ihsane El Kadi was placed under judicial supervision and later sentenced to six months in prison without a detention order. On the night of 23 December 2022, he was arrested at his home, held in custody for six days, and then incarcerated. On 2 April 2023, he was sentenced to five years in prison, two of them suspended, for allegedly receiving illegal funding for his media outlets "from foreign sources." Two months later, on appeal, the sentence was increased to seven years, with two suspended. Ihsane El Kadi was granted a presidential pardon on 1 November 2024, the anniversary of the start of Algeria’s war of liberation. The offices of Radio M remain sealed, and its news website has been offline since June 2024.
The editorial team kept Maghreb Émergent running during their director’s detention. Since regaining his freedom, he has resumed publishing a weekly economic column there. Ihsane El Kadi has been deprived of his passport since April 2021, and his wife since April 2024.
Professor Michael Haller, born in 1945 in Konstanz, studied philosophy, social sciences, and political science in Freiburg and Basel, earned his doctorate in Hegel's political philosophy ("System and Society"), and gained extensive journalistic experience senior editor in several regional newspapers. His stints at Der Spiegel, where he served on the editorial staff for over ten years, and Die Zeit were particularly influential. There, he headed the "Dossier" section for several years. As a lecturer, he also taught at universities and inter-company training and education centres on the theory and practice of journalism.
At the beginning of 1993, Haller was appointed Professor of General and Specialized Journalism at Leipzig University. From 1994 until his retirement in 2010, he held the Chair of Journalism. Since then, he has advised various committees and academies for journalism training in Germany and abroad. From 2012 to 2016, Haller served at the Hamburg Media School (HMS) as General Director of Journalism Research. Since 2018, he has been an elected member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin. In addition to numerous media studies publications on the function of journalism in information-open societies, Haller was also the founding editor of the international journalism journal message and the editor of the book series Leipziger Journalismus (Leipzig Journalism). As author of several textbooks, he established fundamental standards for practical journalism.
Since its founding in 2003, Michael Haller has also been the Scientific Director of the "Institute for Practical Journalism Research" (IPJ), which was restructured in 2014 as the "European Institute for Journalism and Communication Research" (EIJC). The institute was founded by the Department of Journalism at Leipzig University at the suggestion of the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig, as a joint project between the University and the Media Foundation, with the support of the Sparkassenversicherung Sachsen (Saxony Savings Bank Insurance). Since 2011, it has been an independent non-profit research institution under the umbrella of the Media Foundation.
More information about the Prize and the Media Foundation at www.leipziger-medienstiftung.de