From physicist to journalist. The story of Patrick Illinger
Originally a physicist who studied at the University of Munich, Patrick Illinger’s subsequent career trajectory has taken him into the world of journalism, and he is now senior editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a leading German daily newspaper, and a thriller author.
Patrick came to CERN in 1989 as a PhD student from the university in Munich to work on the Crystal Barrel experiment. He arrived at CERN during summer and was immediately welcomed by a diverse crowd of summer students: “It was at CERN that I had the greatest time of my life. I was lucky to meet a lot of like-minded people of my age and I highly appreciated that it did not matter where you came from, all that mattered was the eagerness to explore physics, but also to find out more about the world, about other countries, about other people, and that was just the perfect environment. We had a great time, and I met some people with whom I am connected with still today.”
It was the summer when the Large Electron–Positron collider (LEP) started running and Patrick was lucky enough to catch a key moment in CERN’s history: “In one of my very first evenings at CERN we stood in front of a monitor in the main hall which showed the very first collisions of Electrons and Positrons in the LEP collider and I remember we all stood in front of that screen and cheered. That was the accelerator before the LHC and at that time it was the biggest accelerator in the world, and we were right there watching the collisions happening so that is truly a very vivid memory of mine.”
Patrick expands more regarding his work on the Crystal Barrel experiment and, more specifically, the LEAR experiment: “It was a low energy anti-proton ring, LEAR, and we used a liquid hydrogen target so some of the anti-protons would slow down to zero in the target and would find a proton and annihilate into other states of matter. The detector used around 1400 crystals to measure the energy of photons coming out from those processes, and then we did all sorts of calculations to see if we could find new states of matter.”
He conducted his research at CERN as there was no other institution that could provide this special facility, (the low energy antiproton ring), at that time. He was part of a collaboration of around 50 scientists and PhD students working in what seemed like “a factory hall” which was divided into three experiments. Next to him, there were scientists “measuring if there is a difference between anti-protons and protons using sort of a gravity experiment.” He recalls how he and his colleagues carried out their work: “We did a lot of things by hand. In hindsight, a bit too much. I feel, physicists were sometimes too keen to do everything themselves. For example, at the time we wrote a lot of software ourselves.”
During his stay, a conference called “Science and Media” took place at CERN and changed the course of his entire career: “I already felt the urge to do something else. I longed to find out more about the world, the real world, more than I probably could as a physicist diving into particles. So, one day I saw that there was this conference at CERN which piqued my interest. It was a very international, top-notch conference of science journalists.” Patrick explains that he took advantage of a coffee break to pitch an article to one of the journalists present. Reluctantly the journalist agreed to read the manuscript Patrick would send him. Patrick wrote his proposed article, “The editor would not publish it but liked the style enough to give me a different topic to write about. And the following article was indeed published – in the major weekly German newspaper. This was the spark I needed, and I decided to move into journalism.”
Patrick finished his PhD, although he admits his interest had already switched to journalism, “I finished my PhD, but in my heart, I was eager to start my new career as a journalist.”
After CERN, Patrick applied for a very competitive trainee position to learn everything about journalism from scratch: “When I went into journalism, luckily, I understood that it was a new profession for me which I had to learn. I applied for a traineeship that at the time had around 700 applicants for only 12 positions. It was a multi-stage process and, in the end, I was accepted. The 18 months traineeship was an excellent experience and extremely helpful preparation for my later work.”
Following his traineeship, Patrick worked on a documentary about the war in Bosnia: “At the end of the traineeship they trusted me to do a TV documentary on the Bosnian war. This was a very important life experience, being with the war reporters and going into the war zone. The story I had to report was about a refugee who had lived in Munich and tried to go back to Bosnia to see his family. It was highly emotional and something I will never forget.”
Patrick moved on to the Süddeutsche Zeitung where initially he played a pioneering role in digitalising journalism: “The publisher realised the paper needed not just a business website but also digital content, I was the founding editor of what is today the paper’s main internet site, the sueddeutsche.de. But, at the time, it was all very experimental, and we made lots of mistakes trying to move journalism into the digital age.”
Afterwards, Patrick matched his scientific experience with journalism and became a science editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung. This pushed him to broaden his scientific scope from physics to fields such as genetics, science history, psychology, geophysics and many more: “In 2002 I was offered the position of science editor. At the time about three to four people were running the science desk. In the following years science topics became more and more important so I succeeded in establishing a daily science page, and over time expanded the science desk to about twelve journalists with considerable scientific knowledge. In 2015 we added a special weekend science section of three full pages. That is a lot of science for a newspaper, but the readers loved it. In 2020 I moved on to become the coordinator of the paper’s weekend edition.”
Patrick ponders on the biggest challenges science journalism is facing: “Too often scientists expect science journalists to just communicate findings without being critical. But that is not journalism. Journalists need to reveal and point at fallacies too. They need to report in issues of bad science, retractions, exaggerated claims, even fraud, I also see a growing problem within science of scientists who fall in love with their hypothesis so strongly that they are no longer looking for the truth but looking for data to prove their belief.”
Coming back to CERN and the Alumni network, we asked Patrick about how it felt to win the CERN Alumni Directorate Award: “Very flattered, it was a great honour and I think what touched me the most was that, as I said in the beginning, my time at CERN was very, very decisive for me. CERN is where I experienced my coming of age, the important time was between youth and adulthood. So, when all of a sudden, years later, when you think nobody remembers you, you receive an award it is like a postcard from the past, like a kind message from a relative who you liked very much and haven't seen for years.”
As for the Alumni Network, Patrick sees it as a means to stay connected with the Organization and its people and as something that brings back emotions and memories. Moreover, he thinks the network has benefits for the CERN community too, as it is a way to keep in contact with what is happening outside the organization.
And last but not least, we talked to Patrick about his most recent book: a science thriller around a particle scientist who is kidnapped and discovers a conspiracy that could change the entire world. The book, “QUANTUM – Tödliche Materie”, is currently available in German so if you are able to, make sure you read it. His next book is due in spring of 2023.
If you are thinking about following a career in science journalism, if you read his book and want to share your thoughts or if simply you would like to know more and chat with Patrick, you can easily get in touch with him on alumni.cern.