Nikolaus Brender is a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 journalist. He is currently the commissiong editor of the German public broadcasting

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...

 station ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

.

Controversially, he will have to quit this post in March 2010 after extension of his contract with ZDF was denied by a majority of the station's administrative board members that are politically affiliated with the German Conservative party (the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

Christian Democratic Union (Germany)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...

).

Life

After schooling at a Jesuit school in St. Blasien

St. Blasien

St. Blasien is a town in the Waldshut district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the southern Black Forest, 17 km northeast of Waldshut-Tiengen. St. Blaise's Abbey in the Black Forest is located in St. Blasien. The town is twinned with Saint-Blaise in Switzerland. There is also...

 in the southern Black Forest

Black Forest

The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

 (Kolleg St. Blasien

Kolleg St. Blasien

The Kolleg St. Blasien is a state-recognised private Gymnasium and Catholic school with boarding facilities for boys and girls. It is situated in the town of St. Blasien in the German Black Forest. The school has 850 students, 300 of whom are boarders, and is led by members of the Jesuit order...

), he studied jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

 and political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau

University of Freiburg

The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...

, Munich and Hamburg

University of Hamburg

The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...

, earning a Staatsexamen

Staatsexamen

The ' is a German government licensing examination that future doctors, teachers, pharmacists, food chemists and jurists have to pass to be allowed to work in their profession. The examination is generally organized by government examination agencies which are under the authority of the...

 degree in 1978.

In his youth, he was a member of the Christian Democrat youth organisation, the Junge Union

Junge Union

The Junge Union Deutschlands or JU is the jointyouth organisation of the two conservative German political parties CDU and CSU...

; today, however, he is not affiliated with any party.

Brender has been working as a journalist since 1978, initially for the Zeit

Die Zeit

Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...

, a weekly newspaper from Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 (1978–80) and the Südwestrundfunk

Südwestrundfunk

The Südwestrundfunk is a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany, specifically the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The company has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is an...

, the regional TV station of southwestern Germany (Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

) (1978–82). From 1984 to 1989, he worked for the public broadcasting station ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

 as a correspondent in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

. Following that, he was the head of the foreign correspondents department of the regional TV station for North Rhine Westphalia, the WDR, until 1993. Brender was then head of the department of political coverage at WDR until 1997, before being programme director of that same station. Since April 1, 2000, he has been commissiong editor of ZDF.

Brender is married to Carola Brender, they have a daughter.

Awards

• Adolf Grimme Award 1988
• Bayerischer Fernsehpreis
  Bayerischer Fernsehpreis
  Bayerischer Fernsehpreis is an award presented by the government of Bavaria, Germany since 1989.- 2010 :* Nina Gummich, Nachwuchsförderpreis * Klaus Doldinger, Bavarian Prime Minister's Prize- 2009 :...
  
  1990
• Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize for Journalism 2009
• Journalist of the Year 2009 by Medium Magazine