Last but not least: Is "Baz-Sugardaddy" investing in a bottomless pit?
Christoph Blocher has already spent quite a bit on the purchase of the *Basler Zeitung*. Now he’s throwing in some more cash: He has fully funded the *Basler Zeitung*’s pension fund with over 15 million francs and transferred it to Profond.
This is what the author Werner C. Hug writes in an article in the trade magazine Schweizer Personalvorsorge, as can be read in the NZZ am Sonntag. Blocher had confirmed the high deposit. He is thus creating the prerequisite for the Basler Zeitung Medien pension fund to be handed over to a collective foundation.
But despite rather costly attempts so far to get the Basler Zeitung back on track, it doesn't seem to be quite working out - at least financially. The circulation of the Basler Zeitung is falling fast, as the NZZ am Sonntag reports according to sources at the publishing house. The paper still sells around 70,000 copies, including discounted subscriptions.
Now, savings are to be made among the photographers. Markus Somm has demanded from picture editor Bernhard Vesco that he terminate at least four of six photographers, writes Tageswoche.ch. The writing reporters could take photos themselves for some stories, as Somm explained to Onlinereports.ch. In the local section, several journalists have now already taken up the camera.
Of course, journalists today are multitaskers. They have to write, research, interview and photograph. And if they don't have anything to do, they might as well drive smokers out of their fumoirs, renovate Blocher's castle, and do my taxes.
