Golden mean

Guest commentary Die Zeit? Too bulky! The Times? Too small! The Guardian? The Guardian has hit the bull's eye with its switch to the "Swiss format", says Francesco Benini.a week ago I canceled my subscription to Die Zeit. The Hamburg weekly isn't bad, but I live in a three-room apartment and it was just too much paper for me. What's more, German journalism with its tendency to be long-winded is increasingly getting on my nerves. For example, this article about the Italian ban on smoking in public places. The journalist documents the fact that the Italians have so far been surprisingly disciplined in complying with it, not by visiting two or three bars, but with a tour of eighty-nine pubs. Interwoven into this are digressions on the cultural history of smoking and the development of the Italian national character since Garibaldi, and I would advise the German newspapers to do nothing more than take space away from their writers. This is a cruelty, as any journalist who was socialized at the NZZ knows, and ignores length specifications true to the credo of self-responsibility. But it works, just as the British have shown the Germans with their abandonment of the broadsheet. Of course, some newspapers are going too far, such as the Times, which is immediately switching to tabloid. When I hold a newspaper of this format in my hands, I always feel transported back to my childhood when my father brought me the Mickey Mouse magazine from the newsstand. It should be noted, however, that even today it still contains more information than 20 Minuten and Blick put together.
The Swiss tabloid has not solved any problems by changing its format. As long as Blick refuses to be a real tabloid, as long as you read clumsy theater reviews instead of creepy smear campaigns, it will continue to lose circulation. The fact that the Times has switched to tabloid is ultimately also an expression of a loss of journalistic significance. The reputation that the Times has lost over the last two decades has been gained by the Economist.
The Guardian is doing better. It too is downsizing, but not to tabloid size, but to the size of most Swiss daily newspapers. The good Swiss compromise between bulky wallpaper and pimped-up toilet paper is the right format for a newspaper. If Die Zeit also shrinks to a healthy size, I'll subscribe to it again. Or maybe I'll soon have enough for a bigger apartment.
> Francesco Benini is domestic editor at the NZZ am Sonntag.