40 years of the Basler Zeitung - from forum paper to attacking newspaper
The Basler Zeitung (BaZ) turned 40 years old on Tuesday. Created in 1977 through the merger of the left-liberal National-Zeitung with the bourgeois-conservative Basler Nachrichten, it has recently experienced stormy times with Christoph Blocher as its new co-owner.
Once the product of Switzerland's first major newspaper merger, the BaZ was for a long time virtually a staple of every household in the Basel region. With the demise of the Catholic-oriented Nordschweiz and the left-wing Basel AZ, it became even more dominant in the 1980s. BaZ never really got beyond the region: In the mid-1990s, it took a step across the Jura with its entry into the Weltwoche publishing house Jean Frey, but pulled back again a decade later.
Basel-Land local radio Edelweiss (once Raurach, now Energy) held BaZ for about six years. Later, BaZ publisher Mathias Hagemann - his family owned the majority of the publishing house - bought a majority stake in Radio Basilisk after selling BaZ in 2010.
Entry Blochers
Ticino financier Tito Tettamanti appeared as the BaZ buyer. The appointment of Blocher biographer Markus Somm as editor-in-chief triggered resistance in the editorial team and public protests. After denials, Christoph Blocher admitted in 2013 to being BaZ financier and co-owner. But the label of Blocher-Blatt sent BaZ subscription figures plummeting. The new CEO Rolf Bollmann prescribed an austerity course for BaZ: In 2011, he cut jobs and closed the newspaper printing plant in 2013. A Sunday edition was only one year old. Today, BaZ is printed by Tamedia in Zurich - and is in the black. A small tabloid sister called BaZ kompakt, launched in 2014, now also distributes BaZ content twice a week free of charge. Meanwhile, BaZ is present on the Internet under the Newsnetz alliance with Tamedia. The competition benefited little from the anti-Blocher effect: Only a manageable number of ex-BaZ subscribers switched to the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung or bz Basel, for example. On the other hand, the weekly paper TagesWoche emerged from a protest movement in 2011, but remains a small player to this day.
Criticism of the state as a principle
Under Somm, BaZ has transformed itself from a mostly well-behaved forum paper that was scolded for its lack of profile into an attacking newspaper. In the last elections, however, eloquent commentaries and campaigns for a middle-class Basel had little effect. The left continues to rule. In an editorial in Tuesday's anniversary supplement, Somm himself outlines the task of his paper - he is a co-owner - as a corrective to the power of the state, as a control authority for those in power. This also applies to right-wingers, although their political preferences tend to lie to the right of center in cases of doubt.
In that supplement, SP doyen Helmut Hubacher praises BaZ for allowing other, right-wing opinions to have their say for the benefit of democracy. The supplement also quotes numerous voices with praise and blame from all camps and scenes. The circulation of BaZ is currently 48,000 copies. (SDA)
