Wild Wild Web Podcast: Award for Young Journalists

The creators of the BR podcast “Wild Wild Web – The Kim Dotcom Story” were awarded Germany’s most popular award for young journalists – the 2022 Axel Springer Prize, in the entertainment category.

“What I’ve achieved is more than good entertainment,” says Jacob Weiss, Business Insider’s editor-in-chief, on behalf of the jury. In six episodes, Janne Knödler, André Dér-Hörmeyer, Benedikt Dietsch, and Simon Garschhammer tell the story of internet pioneer Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom. The idea for the podcast came up at a seminar at the German School of Journalism in Munich – carried out with podcast editors Tell Outlets and Klaus Orig.

Wild Wild Web – The Kim Dotcom Story

That’s what the podcast is about: Kim Schmitz, a young computer geek from Kiel, has become “Kimble,” Germany’s most famous hacker – who may not be a hacker at all. He rises up and is condemned – but he also makes his own rules in prison. When it re-emerged in the early 2000s, the internet boom began. Kim starts one company after another and gets rich. Celebrating on board the yachts with Bruce Willis and Kylie Minogue. Then the dotcom bubble bursts.

But not Kim’s success story with her – he’s reinvented himself, founding file-sharing platform Megaupload, which even superstars like Kanye West and Snoop Dogg advertise with. Kim Dotcom moves to New Zealand, to the largest mansion in the country, but soon faces extradition to the United States, where he faces imprisonment for copyright violations.

For the jury, the story of Kim’s life is told in a compelling journalistic manner and at the same time “very good entertainment.”

Wild Wild Web – Hear Kim Dotcom’s story here at ARD Audiothek And everywhere there are podcasts.

Wild Wild Web – The idea was born in a school of journalism

The idea for “The Kim.com Story” came to light at the German School of Journalism (DJS) in Munich – during a podcast training given by Director Henriette Lovich there. Lecturer and Bayern 2 editor Till Ottlitz brought the four young journalists to BR to develop the concept. Within two and a half months of intense work, not only were the storyboards, research, and first interviews created, but the scripts of the six episodes were created, which the team worked on repeatedly in numerous critique sessions with podcast editor Klaus Orig. Then they were set to music and produced within two weeks.

“Wild Wild Web – The Kim Dotcom Story” was one of the surprise hits on the Summer 2021 podcast. The story reached the top of the podcast charts. With over 1.1 million downloads, “Wild Wild Web” is one of the most successful German podcast documentaries of all time.