Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (English "Frankfurt General Newspaper"), also known as FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung". FAZ has a circulation of over 400,000, and has a slight centre-right or conservative bias.

The FAZ has the legal form of a GmbH. The independent "FAZIT-Stiftung" (FAZIT Foundation) is its majority shareholder. About 40 percent of its shares are held by the company itself. [cite news |first= Götz|last= Hamann|title= Sparen, bis die Leser gehen?|url= http://www.zeit.de/2007/39/zukunft-der-zeitung|work= Die Zeit|date= 2007-09-20|accessdate=2008-07-31|language= German] The FAZ runs its own correspondent network. Its editorial policy is not determined by a single editor, but cooperatively by five editors. It has a daily circulation of about 360,000 (2006)Fact|date=August 2008 and is the German newspaper with the widest circulation abroad, with its editors claiming to deliver the newspaper to 148 countries every day.

History

The first edition of the FAZ appeared on November 1, 1949; its founding editor was Erich Welter. Some editors had worked for the "Frankfurter Zeitung", which was banned in 1943.

Traditionally, many of the headlines in the FAZ were styled in orthodox blackletter format and no photographs appeared on the title page. Some of the rare exceptions were a picture of the celebrating people in front of the Reichstag in Berlin on the German Unity Day on 4 October 1990, and the two pictures in the edition of 12 September 2001 showing the collapsing World Trade Center and the American president George W. Bush. Since October 5, 2007, the FAZ altered their traditional layout to include color photographs on the front page and exclude blackletter typeface outside the masthead.

Currently the FAZ is produced electronically using the Networked Interactive Content Access (NICA) and Hermes. For its characteristic comment headings, a digital "Fraktur" font was ordered. The Fraktur has since been abandoned, however, with the above-mentioned change of layout. After introducing on August 1, 1999, the new spelling prescribed by the German spelling reform of 1996, the FAZ returned exactly one year later to the old spelling, declaring that their experience had shown that the reform was ambiguous and partly nonsensical. After several changes had been made to the new spelling, FAZ accepted it and started using it (in a custom version) on January 1, 2007. Due to its traditionally sober layout, the introduction of colour photographs in the FAZ was controversially discussed by the readers.

Profile

The FAZ promotes an image of making its readers think. The truth is stated to be sacred to the FAZ, so care is taken to clearly label news reports and comments as such. Its political orientation is classical liberal with an occasional support for conservative views, but it is not afraid of providing a forum to commentators with different views. In particular the "feuilleton" and some sections of the Sunday edition can not be said to be specifically conservative or liberal at all. The "letters to the editors" receive a lot of attention. Its well-grounded articles about law are unofficially considered as compulsory reading among law students.

Famous contributors

*Patrick Bahners
*Hans Dietmar Barbier
*Dietmar Dath
*Karl Feldmeier
*Joachim Fest (former editor)
*Karl Friedrich Fromme (former editor)
*Greser&Lenz
*Georg Paul Hefty
*Florian Illies
*Daniel Kehlmann
*Andreas Platthaus
*Marcel Reich-Ranicki
*Volker Reiche (see Strizz)

External links

* [http://www.faz.net The FAZ online edition (in German; most articles are free)]
* [http://www.tu-berlin.de/fb1/AGiW/Cricetus/SOzuC1/SOVsRSR/ArchivSO/FAZ_7_00.htm Explanation for the return to the pre-reform spelling (in German)]
* [http://www.ketupa.net/faz.htm Ketupa.net - Frankfurter Zeitung and FAZ] media profile

References