Tanjev Schultz has been a professor at the Department of Journalism and the Department of Communication at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz since 2016. His teaching and research focus on journalistic writing and forms of journalistic presentation, trust in the media, conspiracy myths, ethos and ethics of journalism, media and democracy, media and extremism/terrorism, freedom of the press, investigative journalism and data journalism. Tanjev Schultz is program officer for the exchange program with the University of Memphis.

Tanjev Schultz studied at the Freie Universität Berlin, Fern-Universität Hagen and at the School of Journalism (School of Media) at Indiana University in Bloomington (USA). He earned a Master of Arts (USA) in Journalism and a Magister (Germany) in Philosophy, Psychology and German Studies. Tanjev Schultz received his PhD in political science from the University of Bremen with the dissertation “Chatter or Discourse? The Rationality of Political Talk Shows on Television.” From 1999 to 2003, he was a research assistant at the University of Bremen, where he was involved in a DFG project on the identities of Turkish immigrants, among other things. He also taught at the International University Bremen. In 2003, Tanjev Schultz moved to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In 2016, after more than twelve years in professional journalism, he accepted the call to the professorship for Foundations and Strategies of Journalism at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He is a member of the German Society for Journalistic and Communication Science (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, DGPuK) and one of the founders and editors of the journal Journalistik.

Tanjev Schultz worked as a political editor for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, for which he continues to work as a freelance writer. Initially, he was responsible for reporting on education policy, later on topics of internal security, terrorism and political extremism. He repeatedly worked as a deputy chief of staff for domestic policy. Over the years, he wrote more than a thousand articles, mainly in the politics section but also in the business, feature and local sections—short as well as long reports and analyses, numerous interviews, reviews, commentaries, editorials and major Page 3 reports.

Schultz gained his first journalistic experience during his studies, as an intern and freelancer for the Lübecker Nachrichten, the Berliner Zeitung, the Spiegel, the Tagesspiegel, the Berlin city magazine “Zitty” and the WDR. With fellow students, he ran a small journalism office in Berlin. Schultz later wrote columns for the weekly magazine “Schleswig-Holstein am Sonntag” for many years. At the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he worked closely with the online editorial team and the investigative department. He was part of the team on major research projects and series, such as “Secret War” (about the work of U.S. intelligence agencies) and “Swiss Leaks” (about a data leak at a Swiss bank). Together with his colleague Roland Preuß, he was the first to write about the plagiarism in the doctoral thesis of then German Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, triggering his plagiarism affair. For years, Schultz reported on the abuse cases at the Odenwald School, the terror of the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU), the NSU trial and the work of various parliamentary investigative committees. Tanjev Schultz’s journalistic work has received several awards: Media Award of the German Evaluation Society, Emma Journalist Award, shortlist Henri Nannen Award in the category Reportage (Egon Erwin Kisch Award), Goethe Media Award, Universitas Award for Science Journalism, Lead Award Bronze (twice) and Lead Award Gold. In 2018, he was named “Journalist of the Year” (Medium Magazine award, Team of the Year category). In 2019, Schultz and three former SZ colleagues received the Nannen Award for their years of reporting on the NSU case.

Tanjev Schultz is a member of the juries of several journalism awards: the German Journalism Award, the German Radio Award, Medium magazine (“Journalist of the Year”) and the sponsorship award for young journalists in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.