Michael Leidig

Michael Leidig (born 19 April 1965) is a British journalist based in Vienna, Austria. He has worked for Austrian and international media in print and broadcast. He was also the owner of CEN, the news wire agency Central European News Ltd, which operated from 1995 to 2024. He is the co-founder of the independent freelance journalism initiative the Fourth Estate Alliance (T4).

In 2015, BuzzFeed published an investigation alleging that Central European News distributed attention-grabbing stories that were often inaccurate or false. Leidig and CEN filed an $11 million defamation action in New York in January 2016. The action was dismissed in March 2019 after the court held that Leidig and CEN had not disproven BuzzFeed's allegations that Leidig and CEN distributed attention-grabbing stories that were often inaccurate or false.

Career Leidig moved to Austria in 1993 to take up a role as a news presenter with the ORF and in 1995 left to start his first agency, CEN. In 1996, he became editor of the monthly English language Vienna Reporter and in 1995 became editor of a daily Austrian English language newspaper Austria Today. He also produced English language news with a daily English section for Die Presse for several years, later taking over the layout, editorial and writing of a page a day in the Wiener Zeitung, the world's oldest still selling newspaper. CEN later launched other online news wire projects such as the Austrian Times that included an English food guide with Austrian chef Bernie Rieder.

Leidig co-wrote the book "The Girl in the Cellar - The Natascha Kampusch Story" published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2006.

In 2008, Leidig met Austrian charity worker Hannes Urban and they were involved in establishing the Austrian charity project Journalism Without Borders.

In April 2024, Leidig shuttered Central European News along with his other news agencies: Newsflash, AsiaWire and Clipzilla. At that time the network employed 30 people and had offices in Austria and Macedonia with staff also working in Iran, Egypt, China and Turkey. Leidig said he needed to make £47,000 each month to cover costs and had only been bringing in £25,000. Leidig won a full apology after an Austrian court ruled that the case brought against him had been "a deliberate attempt to damage sales of the book."

In April 2015 Leidig was again accused of producing fake news in two reports by online news portal BuzzFeed. In January 2016, he sued them in a federal court in New York for libel. The case alleges that two articles by BuzzFeed were a deliberate attempt at undermining the news agency which was a major supplier to BuzzFeed's UK rivals. In March 2019, the case was dismissed, on the grounds that "Buzzfeed argues that plaintiffs (Leidig) cannot show the falsity of the allegedly defamatory statements, and thus plaintiffs’ claims must fail. The court agrees."