Greetings from the left
It turns out that blood is thicker than water—at least in the Liberal family. That’s why the rebellious niece, WoZ, is officially showing solidarity with her old aunt, NZZ. And she’s offering her some advice.
Column Blood is thicker than water - at least in the liberal family. That's why the rebellious niece WoZ is officially showing solidarity with her old aunt NZZ. And offers her some advice: "Dear aunt, in times of need, the family should stand together. Sure, there have often been misunderstandings between WoZ and NZZ in the past. (The wretched politics!) But after all, every good family has its problems. The important thing is to stick together when it comes to the big picture. In any case, the latest news about you worries us: 50 million annual losses, 100 million write-offs, rumors of power struggles and amputations - we know these problems well. WoZ and NZZ not only share a passion for style, seriousness and sometimes adventurous political messages. What makes us really close relatives, however, is our shared identity as uncompromisingly liberal papers. Our common goal is freedom. Not just as an ideal, but as a daily practice.
While the WoZ has chosen a chief-rich model - 55 chiefs and 0 Indians - the NZZ, however, prefers the variant of a wise, mild and inactive chief. As a result, the departments are almost autonomous: the NZZ is a labyrinth of labyrinths with a hundred small courts, niches and lonely nomadic trappers in the great lead prairie.
This astonishing freedom for (still) an astonishing number of employees sometimes produces annoying results: Ignorance, arrogance, nested sentences. (Note: freedom is only freedom if it can also be abused). But brilliance is also possible at any time. There are many voices, many styles, many points of view in the NZZ. It is not only the paper of the liberals, but also a liberal paper.
Now this freedom is under serious threat: the name of the modern-day Gessler is lack of money. There are rumors of a second wave of redundancies, Hugo Bütler's removal from power and the streamlining of entire departments. The cold hands of the reorganizers are reaching out to the paper that has praised their recipes but never lived up to them.
What is even more dangerous is that the idealistic cement is crumbling: the liberal tradition. Not only because the FDP is losing ground and is increasingly at the mercy of the SVP. But because liberalism itself mutated into an ideology in the 1990s. Performance and profit have become ends in themselves rather than mere means: To run a company with interesting people and products - like the NZZ. But an ideologized environment is poison for a newspaper: the lack of curiosity is even more suffocating than the lack of money. We on the left know this from the past.
But don't worry, dear aunt, the crisis also offers enormous opportunities to reinvent yourself. Here's what your niece advises you to do:
1. under existential pressure, even lone fighters can be forged into a powerful force: through shared fear and shared wounded pride. However, this requires discussions about the future course of the paper - among the entire editorial team. The defense of liberality, of freedom against economic freedom, would be a real, inspiring task.
2. with the direction, of course, the form should also change. Is the byzantine to cryptic style really necessary? Until now, as the central organ of the economy, the NZZ could oracle like the Kremlin astrologers; as an opposition paper, however, it must express itself clearly.
3. if sacrifices are to be made, then in the right place: In view of the prevailing state of emergency, it should be possible to say goodbye to the hard core of ideologues in style (head of economics Gerhard Schwarz, for example, could be appointed to the NZZ honorary board of directors). What we can't do: as we did last year, we can't fire people without a lobby and Zurichberg pedigree.
With this in mind: Fight, dear aunt! Your niece is on your side.
As editor of WochenZeitung (WoZ), Constantin Seibt is jointly responsible for its relaunch.
While the WoZ has chosen a chief-rich model - 55 chiefs and 0 Indians - the NZZ, however, prefers the variant of a wise, mild and inactive chief. As a result, the departments are almost autonomous: the NZZ is a labyrinth of labyrinths with a hundred small courts, niches and lonely nomadic trappers in the great lead prairie.
This astonishing freedom for (still) an astonishing number of employees sometimes produces annoying results: Ignorance, arrogance, nested sentences. (Note: freedom is only freedom if it can also be abused). But brilliance is also possible at any time. There are many voices, many styles, many points of view in the NZZ. It is not only the paper of the liberals, but also a liberal paper.
Now this freedom is under serious threat: the name of the modern-day Gessler is lack of money. There are rumors of a second wave of redundancies, Hugo Bütler's removal from power and the streamlining of entire departments. The cold hands of the reorganizers are reaching out to the paper that has praised their recipes but never lived up to them.
What is even more dangerous is that the idealistic cement is crumbling: the liberal tradition. Not only because the FDP is losing ground and is increasingly at the mercy of the SVP. But because liberalism itself mutated into an ideology in the 1990s. Performance and profit have become ends in themselves rather than mere means: To run a company with interesting people and products - like the NZZ. But an ideologized environment is poison for a newspaper: the lack of curiosity is even more suffocating than the lack of money. We on the left know this from the past.
But don't worry, dear aunt, the crisis also offers enormous opportunities to reinvent yourself. Here's what your niece advises you to do:
1. under existential pressure, even lone fighters can be forged into a powerful force: through shared fear and shared wounded pride. However, this requires discussions about the future course of the paper - among the entire editorial team. The defense of liberality, of freedom against economic freedom, would be a real, inspiring task.
2. with the direction, of course, the form should also change. Is the byzantine to cryptic style really necessary? Until now, as the central organ of the economy, the NZZ could oracle like the Kremlin astrologers; as an opposition paper, however, it must express itself clearly.
3. if sacrifices are to be made, then in the right place: In view of the prevailing state of emergency, it should be possible to say goodbye to the hard core of ideologues in style (head of economics Gerhard Schwarz, for example, could be appointed to the NZZ honorary board of directors). What we can't do: as we did last year, we can't fire people without a lobby and Zurichberg pedigree.
With this in mind: Fight, dear aunt! Your niece is on your side.
As editor of WochenZeitung (WoZ), Constantin Seibt is jointly responsible for its relaunch.
