Neue Zürcher Zeitung

History and profile

One of the oldest newspapers still published, it originally appeared as Zürcher Zeitung, edited by the Swiss painter and poet Salomon Gessner, on 12 January 1780. It was renamed Neue Zürcher Zeitung in 1821.

According to Peter K. Buse and Jürgen C. Doerr, many prestigious German language newspapers followed its example because it set "standards through an objective, in-depth treatment of subject matter, eloquent commentary, an extensive section on entertainment, and one on advertising."

Aside from the switch from its blackletter typeface in 1946, the newspaper has changed little since the 1930s. Only in 2005 did it add color pictures, much later than most mainstream papers. The emphasis is on international news, business, finance, and high culture. Features and lifestyle stories are kept to a minimum.

Historically, the newspaper has been politically positioned close to the liberal Free Democratic Party of Switzerland since its early period. The paper's official statutes and guidelines declare it to have a "liberal democratic foundation". Accordingly, it has traditionally adopted a free-market liberal However, in 2014, Markus Somm (formerly an editor at the Basler Zeitung), a more pronounced right-wing journalist, was slated to became editor-in-chief, leading to fears by staff of a rightward shift, resulting in internal protest. The internal upheaval eventually lead to Somm not taking on his role. However, the appointment of Eric Gujer as editor-in-chief in 2015 and René Scheu as head of the feature section in 2016, as well as almost half of all contributing editors leaving the newspaper between 2015 and December 2017, marked a noticeable shift to the right, according to critics.

In their analysis, Linards Udris and fellows of the University of Zurich ranked the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in a dominant position in their media quality yearbook.

Circulation

The circulation of Neue Zürcher Zeitung was 18,100 copies in 1910. It rose to 47,500 copies in 1930 and 66,600 copies in 1950.

In 1997, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung had a circulation of 162,330 copies. Its circulation was 169,000 copies in 2000. The circulation of the paper was 166,000 copies in 2003. The 2006 circulation of the paper was 146,729 copies. Its circulation was 139,732 copies in 2009. In 2010, the paper had a circulation of 136,894 copies.

Weekend edition

In 2002, the newspaper launched a weekend edition, NZZ am Sonntag (NZZ on Sunday). The weekend edition has its own editorial staff and contains more soft news and lifestyle issues than its weekday counterpart, as do most Swiss weekend newspapers. Its circulation was 121,204 copies in 2006.

NZZ am Sonntag was awarded the European Newspaper of the Year in the category of weekly newspaper by the European Newspapers Congress in 2012.

Archives

In 2005, the complete run of the newspaper's first 225 years was scanned from microfilm. A total of two million images comprising seventy terabytes, and its Blackletter type was scanned using optical character recognition at a total cost of €600,000 (or €0.30 per image). The result is a searchable digital archive, accessible online by subscribers and publicly on site in Zurich.

The digitization was carried out by an institute of the German research organization Fraunhofer Society the Institute for Media Communication (since 2006, the ), headquartered in Sankt Augustin, North Rhine-Westphalia.

Editors-in-chief

• 1821 – 1830: Paul Usteri
• 1830 – 1849: 10 different editor-in-chiefs
• 1849 – 1867: Peter Jakob Felber
• 1868 – 1872: Eugen Escher
• 1872 – 1876: Hans Weber
• 1876 – 1877: Eugen Huber
• 1877 – 1878: Gottwalt Niederer
• 1878 – 1884: Gustav Vogt
• 1885 – 1915: Walter Bissegger
• 1915 – 1929: Albert Meyer
• 1933 – 1968: Willy Bretscher
• 1968 – 1985: Fred Luchsinger
• 1985 – 2006: Hugo Bütler
• 2006 – 2014: Markus Spillmann
• since 2015: Eric Gujer

NZZ Libro

NZZ Libro is the book publishing part of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). Books have been published since 1927; since 1980, the publishing house has been run as a separate profit centre. Since 2006 the publishing house has operated under the name NZZ Libro. The publishing programme of specialist and non-fiction literature includes, among other things, political, cultural, historical, and economic books, as well as biographies and illustrated books, predominantly with a Swiss reference.

Award

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung was a co-recipient of the 1979 Erasmus Prize, alongside German newspaper Die Zeit.

References

1. "Profil geschärft – mit rechten Thesen?".
2. {{Historical Dictionary of Switzerland. 048585. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). Maissen, Thomas. (2015-04-10)
3. (2023-09-25). "News Coverage in Major Media Outlets Is Politically Balanced". Forschungszentrum Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft [[University of Zurich]].
4. Fossedal, Gregory. (2018). "Direct Democracy in Switzerland". [[Routledge]].
5. Hugo Bigi. (2012). "Journalism Education Between Market Dependence and Social Responsibility: An Examination of Trainee Journalists". Haupt Verlag AG.
6. (17 May 2004). "The press in Switzerland". BBC.
7. Peter K. Buse and Jürgen C. Doerr, eds. (1998). ''Modern Germany: And Encyclopedia of history, people, and culture, 1871–1990'' 2:786.
8. Ariane Knüsel. (1 September 2012). "Framing China: Media Images and Political Debates in Britain, the USA and Switzerland, 1900–1950". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
9. (9 April 2011). "Statuten der Aktiengesellschaft für die Neue Zürcher Zeitung".
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11. (December 15, 2014). "Move to the right stirs uproar at staid Swiss newspaper".
12. (16 December 2017). ""Neue Zürcher Zeitung": Druck von rechts". Die Zeit.
13. "NZZ: Warum das Blatt sich wendet". NDR.
14. Udris, Linards. (2019). "IX. Medienqualität".
15. (2024). "Jahrbuch Qualität der Medien; chpt. V. Medienqualität". [[Schwabe (publisher).
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19. (October 2007). "Swiss newspaper market in flux". Swiss Review.
20. Hugo Bigi. (2012). "Journalism Education Between Market Dependence and Social Responsibility: An Examination of Trainee Journalists". Haupt Verlag AG.
21. Cyril Jost. (4 February 2011). "The challenges confronting the Swiss press". InaGlobal.
22. "European Newspaper Award 12+1". European Newspaper Congress.
23. Klaus Jacob. (February 2005). [http://www.iais.fraunhofer.de/uploads/media/NZZ_fhg_journal_imk_nzz.pdf "70 Terabyte Zeitgeschichte"] {{webarchive. link. (19 July 2011. ''Fraunhofer Magazin''. Retrieved 23 August 2012.)
24. "NZZ Libro". NZZ.
25. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19790921&id=Bu9UAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-ZIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5674,1504767 "Erasmus Prize"]. ''The Age'' (via Google News). 21 September 1979. Retrieved 23 August 2012. "The 1979 Erasmus Prize for outstanding contribution to European culture was presented jointly yesterday to the Swiss daily newspaper 'Neue Zuercher Zeitung' and the West German weekly 'Die Ziet'."