In Basel on the beautiful Rhy

No, the Basler Zeitung BaZ was not expropriated, but the new owners have used their capitalist right to dispose of their new property without restriction. True to the patriarchal motto: What I have acquired in good faith, I may also destroy! Whether it's a profitable print shop, a listed villa or a state-politically relevant medium, who cares! Cynicism does indeed make it easier to read the new book by Christian Mensch: "Enteignete Zeitung. Die Geschichte der Basler Zeitung - ein Lehrstück über den Medienwandel". He also unflinchingly demands that the media - and their publishers - should provide a public service. Just as many have demanded in recent years at the many panel discussions on "media quality".

But the more quality is talked about publicly, the more endangered it must be! The situation in the media industry is too difficult. This, too, has been lamented without result at many panel discussions in recent years. Keywords: In recent decades, capital requirements and the importance of advertising revenue have increased, and the party press has slowly disappeared. It is questionable whether this has improved the journalistic supply for national political debates. Take the BaZ: for many years - according to Christian Mensch - there was a secret agreement with the Chamber of Commerce that gave the latter a say in exchange for advertising. In other words, the dismantling of party ties increased the influence of advertisers or business-related associations. And also: the fight for private radio and television was always also a dispute about the understanding of the role of journalism, public service or service publicité.

An understanding of roles that was also controversial among the Forum newspapers. Nevertheless, many editorial offices achieved greater freedom - as publisher president Hanspeter Lebrument has repeatedly lamented. Many editorial offices were even able to secure this for a time in the 1970s/1980s through editorial statutes.

Christian Mensch is right, the Basler Zeitung is an example - as is Weltwoche. The bourgeois mainstream in Switzerland has changed, slowly but steadily. Since the FDP demand for "more freedom - less state", which always included a weakening of social partnership obligations and aimed at dismantling the public service. Further driven by the neoliberal white papers of the 1990s. Today, it is the national conservatives - economically liberal and defamatory towards the socially disadvantaged, regardless of nationality - who set the political pace for the bourgeoisie, not only in asylum policy, but most obviously there. Although the clock setters speak of "democracy" on a daily basis, they do so more as a simulation. In plain language: they mean acclamation of the Board of Directors' decisions. Media that are primarily committed to public service can be a hindrance in this respect.

The reversal of polarity from Weltwoche and Basler Zeitung to campaign papers is therefore not a sign of the "erosion of an epoch-defining bourgeois culture", as media sociologist Kurt Imhof believes. Nor is the end of the Enlightenment in sight, as Imhof embellishes the past. Enlightenment has always been an unstable state: some media are its lubricant, but others were agitators or simply money machines. One example: Hugenberg Verlag, which dominated the market at the time, played a key role in the end of the Weimar Republic. We are a long way from such conditions. And the future in Basel on the beautiful Rhy? The BaZ counter-project Tageswoche is a foundation and therefore a reliable partner for the public service. The extent to which the project will weather the economic storm remains to be seen - as with all other media projects. However, the public service is having a hard time, and not just on the "market".