Peter Frey (journalist)

On 10 December 2009, he was elected by the ZDF board of directors to succeed Nikolaus Brender as the new ZDF editor-in-chief from 1 April 2010. His successor as head of the Berlin studio was Bettina Schausten.

Frey has been a fellow at the Center for Applied Political Research at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich since 2006.  In addition, Peter Frey is a member of the advisory board of the American Jewish Committee, an elected member of the Central Committee of German Catholics, and the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Körber Foundation.

In 2005, he hosted numerous special episodes on the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI from Rome. In 2008, he hosted the nine-hour program Amerika hat gewählt zur Wahl von Barack Obama and commented on Obama's visits to Germany.

From 2001 to 2010, Frey was head of the ZDF capital studio in Berlin and presented the programs Berlin direkt, ZDF-Sommerinterview, and Berliner Runde. He analyzed current political developments for the news programs heute and heute-journal.

From 1998 to 2001, he was the head of ZDF's main foreign affairs department. During this time he presented the auslandsjournal, numerous special programs, and the program ZDF Royal.  He developed the daily journal heute – in Europa and authored the foreign reports Wer rettet Russland? and Der Fluch des Öls.

In 1991, Frey went to Washington, D.C. as a correspondent and deputy head of the ZDF studio there, where he reported on the Gulf War. From 1992 to 1998, he headed the ZDF-Morgenmagazin [de] and moderated the program together with Maybrit Illner, Gundula Gause [de], and Cherno Jobatey [de].

During his studies, he worked as a presenter for Südwestfunk and wrote for the Frankfurter Rundschau and Die Zeit. In 1983, he became an editor at ZDF and reported from Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, and Poland. From 1988, he was the personal advisor to the then newly-elected ZDF editor-in-chief Klaus Bresser.

Peter Frey (born 4 August 1957) is a German journalist. He has been editor-in-chief of ZDF since 1 April 2010.

Frey was born on 4 August 1957 in Bingen am Rhein, Germany. After graduating from the Stefan-George-Gymnasium in Bingen in 1976, Frey performed community service and from 1978 studied political science, education and Spanish at the University of Mainz and as a scholarship holder of the Spanish Foreign Ministry in Madrid.