In April 2018, the business newspaper Handelsblatt was prepared to report on alleged conflicts of interest in Mr. Reichelt’s relationship with a woman at a public relations agency, Der Spiegel reported this year. The article was killed after a call from Mr. Reichelt, a person involved in the process said. (A Handelsblatt spokeswoman did not respond to an emailed inquiry.)
This year, Juliane Löffler, a reporter at the German publisher Ippen, along with three other members of Ippen’s investigative team, worked on an investigation of Mr. Reichelt’s conduct in the hope of publishing an article with more details on what had taken place at Bild. In the course of reporting, Ms. Löffler and her colleagues gained access to some of the same documents that I reviewed in recent weeks, as the Ippen article was nearing its publication date. Then, on Friday, Ippen told its investigative unit that it was killing the story.
The directive came from Ippen’s largest shareholder, Dirk Ippen, according to correspondence from a company official that I obtained. Ms. Löffler and her fellow reporters objected, writing in a letter to company management that “no legal or editorial reasons were given” for stopping their reporting.