Weltspiegel is a documentary television program on the first channel (Erste) of the German public television network ARD. Its title is based on the newspaper Der Weltspiegel.
The program is the flagship of ARD's foreign reporting. Correspondent reports from the ARD correspondent offices are broadcast once a week under the auspices of NDR, WDR, SWR, or BR. In addition to the regular broadcast, there are the monothematic programs Weltspiegel-Reportage, Weltspiegel extra, and Weltspiegel-Doku, which are sometimes broadcast at irregular intervals.
The first program of Weltspiegel, subtitled "Foreign Correspondents Report," aired on April 5, 1963, hosted by Gerd Ruge. Ruge developed Weltspiegel as the first program of its kind on German television in collaboration with Klaus Bölling. [1]
Until 1974, the series was broadcast by NDR and WDR, and from January 1975, BR and SDR joined. BR and SDR had previously been responsible for the ARD magazine Kompass – ARD Foreign Reports. The programs were combined as Weltspoiegel and extended from 30 to 40 minutes. [1]
In 2021, then-ARD program director Christine Strobl proposed a move to a late weekday broadcast. Forty-five journalists and foreign correspondents protested against the devaluation of foreign reporting in an open letter. [2]