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Newspapers in Germany
West Germany has always had highly developed mass media. The independence
of the press and its freedom from censorship are guaranteed in Article
5 of the Basic Law. Conversely, the communist regime in East Germany tightly
controlled the media. Despite government censorship, East Germans were
voracious newspaper and magazine readers. More than three dozen newspapers
enjoyed a combined circulation of almost 10 million in the GDR.
The complexion of the print media in eastern Germany changed markedly
with unification. By mid-1991 only 100,000 copies of East Germany's most
widely circulated newspaper, Neues Deutschland, the newspaper
of the communist party, were being printed daily, down from roughly 1
million in the recent past. Western consortia bought many of the other
established urban newspapers and brought in new management. According
to a public opinion survey during the 1990 national election, 68 percent
of western Germans and 88 percent of eastern Germans read a newspaper
on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, Germany boasts among the highest
per capita newspaper circulations within Europe.
The press is privately owned, and most Germans rely on local or regional
newspapers for their information. Five daily newspapers enjoy good reputations
nationally because of their sophisticated domestic and international coverage:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
Frankfurter Rundschau, Handelsblatt, and Die Welt.
The FAZ is probably Germany's most prestigious daily newspaper and is
the one newspaper read by virtually all members of the political and business
establishment. Although independent of any political party, its views
are similar to those of the right-of-center CDU. Handelsblatt
is the leading business daily. Die Zeit, a weekly newspaper,
provides an erudite review of news and culture from a perspective sympathetic
to Social Democratic views. Weekly editions of Die Zeit are often
more than 100 pages, with in-depth articles filling an entire page. Former
chancellor Schmidt is one of its publishers; the paper's circulation is
493,000. Because these newspapers appeal to an elite readership, their
circulation figures are much lower than that of the tabloid press. Bild
Zeitung, with a daily circulation of close to 5 million, is Germany's
most widely circulated daily. It puts a sensationalist spin on topical
issues and tends to support right-of-center policies.
Both Bild Zeitung and Die Welt are published by the
Axel Springer Group, based in Hamburg. Axel Springer, now deceased, built
an enormous media empire, which also includes the two largest Sunday newspapers,
Bild am Sonntag and Welt am Sonntag, two Berlin daily
newspapers, and many popular magazines. Springer publications are generally
considered to have a strong conservative bent.
The liberal counterpart to Axel Springer and his successors has been
Rudolf Augstein, founder and publisher of the weekly Der Spiegel,
a highly respected and influential newsmagazine combining news coverage
with investigative journalism. The magazine's decidedly liberal critique
of politics and politicians has often steeped it in controversy. In 1994
its circulation stood at over 1 million copies. Der Spiegel is
distributed in 165 countries, and close to 15 percent of its sales are
outside Germany.
In 1993 competition for market share held by Der Spiegel emerged
with the publication of Focus , a newsmagazine fashioned after
Time and Newsweek , with shorter articles and a more
colorful layout than that offered by Der Spiegel. Focus
appeared on newsstands in January 1993, was less expensive than Der
Spiegel, and, after a few months, was faring better than expected.
By mid-April Focus was maintaining a circulation of 600,000 and
had exceeded its annual target for pages of advertising sold. Since its
founding in 1946, Der Spiegel has successfully faced down competition
from more than fifty publications. However, the circulation of Focus
is growing while that of Der Spiegel is falling.
Although newspapers owned by political parties were common during the
Weimar period, the partisan press is much less significant in the Germany
of the 1990s. Vorwaerts is the official newspaper of the SPD,
and Bayernkurier serves the CSU. Rheinischer Merkur
has informal links to the CDU, and Neues Deutschland offers views
of the PDS.
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