Freiburg News celebrates 150th anniversary

While there were several French-language newspapers in the bilingual canton in the mid-19th century, the Fribourg News did not appear for the first time until January 1863 - at that time still under the name "Die Sense" and as a weekly newspaper. A year later, the publication adopted its current name and since the beginning of the 20th century, Fribourg News has been a daily newspaper.

In their early days, the FN, as they are known for short, still stood for conservative values. From the 1970s onward, the company opened up denominationally and politically. In 2010, the publishing house made a foray into the Seeland region of Fribourg, where the FN took over the two local papers Murtenbieter and the Anzeiger von Kerzers.

16'100 copies

Today, 65 people are employed at the Freiburger Nachrichten, including 18 journalists and photographers. The newspaper is published in 16'100 copies and reaches about 39'000 readers. A large circulation is published every Thursday and is also distributed in border areas of Bern. It is printed 40'800 times.

Thematically, the FN is primarily devoted to regional and local topicality, while the Berner Zeitung provides the national pages. Since last year, all editorial pages have been in full color, after the entire issue was graphically refreshed in 2008.

Made (still) in Freiburg

Like the newspapers La Liberté and La Gruyère, the FN is produced on the printing press of Paulusdruckerei in Fribourg. Recently, however, the FN management decided to have the newspaper produced in Bern from 2015 for financial reasons.

The loss of this major customer means that Paulusdruckerei will close its newspaper printing division by the end of 2014. 50 jobs are at risk. A motion on the matter is pending in the Grand Council of the Canton of Fribourg. It calls for state aid to the Paulus printing plant to compensate for the loss of revenue. (SDA)