Sports journalist Michael Kuhn dies at age 88

From 1965 onward, Kuhn additionally appeared as a presenter and live commentator at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). Generations of viewers, especially in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, followed his reports on football matches and ski races. The dual role at the newspaper and the public broadcaster ended when the then ORF Director General Gerd Bacher – feuding with Krone chief Hans Dichand – no longer wanted to tolerate his work for the "Krone".

Dual role at newspaper and ORF

Kuhn took the separation from ORF sportingly. He had always considered himself a "newspaper man" anyway, he was once quoted as saying. At the "Kronen Zeitung" he built the sports desk into the country's central sports journalism hub, serving as sports desk chief, at times deputy editor-in-chief, and finally – after an internal crisis over the succession question – being nominated in 2003 by the German Funke Group as managing editor-in-chief. This appointment came as a concession for consenting to the appointment of Christoph Dichand as editor-in-chief.

The collaboration with Dichand ended in dispute: in 2006 Kuhn was dismissed without notice. Until the end, however, he remained connected to the "Krone" world and was regarded as a distinguished expert on Austrian and international sports. For decades, the Viennese shaped both the printed sports coverage and the sports broadcasts on ORF.

Commitment to the profession

Alongside his work in the newsrooms, Kuhn was committed to the organizational side of his profession. In 1997 he was among the founding members of Sports Media Austria, the association of Austrian sports journalists. Until 2014 he served as the association's president, after which he took on the role of honorary president. In this capacity, he championed the interests of domestic sports journalists.

Numerous awards accompanied his life's work. As early as 1997, he was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the City of Vienna. Further honors followed in 2019 from the international sports journalists' association AIPS and in 2024 from the trade magazine "Österreichs Journalist:in". At an IOC event, IOC President Thomas Bach presented him with a lifetime achievement award with the words: "Wer außer Ihnen hätte sich diesen Preis verdient?" Kuhn responded with a modest: "Der kennt mich ja gar nicht."

Honors for a life's work

As an author, Kuhn also left his mark. He wrote several specialist publications, including the well-known "Kuhn's Sport-Chronik". In it he documented a piece of Austrian sports history and made his knowledge accessible to a wider audience. On the international stage, Kuhn was considered "rund um den Erdball respektiert".

His successor as SMA president, Michael Schuen, honored Kuhn as a "wahre Institution im österreichischen Sportjournalismus, aber auch im österreichischen Sport". Schuen recalled Kuhn's "joviale Art, seine Höflichkeit, seine Noblesse, seine Gutherzigkeit". Kuhn had never been offensive. The successor spoke of the loss of a "Lebensbegleiters".

Family and private circle

Privately, Kuhn is survived by his wife, the astrologer Helga Kuhn, who likewise worked at the "Krone" for many years, as well as his daughter, the TV producer Bettina Kuhn. The family lived for decades in the shadow of the patriarch's media presence.

Kuhn's death marks the end of an era of Austrian sports journalism. His voice and his reports had set standards and shaped an entire generation of sports fans and sports reporters. The loss would be felt in the industry for a long time, Sports Media Austria emphasized.

With his death, Austria loses a personality who helped shape and internationally represent sports journalism over several decades, it was said in the obituaries. Kuhn's works – from the "Kuhn's Sport-Chronik" to his ORF reports – remain part of the collective memory of domestic sports coverage.

The industry takes its leave of a journalist who, like few others, embodied the connection between daily newspaper and television in Austrian sports. His work would live on in the newsrooms and sports editorial departments, companions explained.

With Kuhn's death, a journalistic career ends that began in the 1950s and spanned more than six decades. The standards he shaped in research, commentary and reporting remain a reference for subsequent generations of sports journalists.