die tageszeitung

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taz front page from October 5, 2007, featuring the German politician Kurt Beck

die tageszeitung (referred to commonly as taz), founded in 1978 in Berlin, is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper. It has a strong focus on ecology and has often supported the German Green Party, although this did not prevent it from criticising the SPD/Greens coalition government (1998–2005).

From the beginning, the taz was intended to be an alternative to the mainstream press, in its own words: "irreverent, commercially independent, intelligent and entertaining." One expression of its alternative approach to journalism was the payment of unified salaries for all employees until 1991. Nowadays, employees in highly responsible positions receive bonuses. Still, salaries paid by the taz are considerably lower than what is paid in the rest of the industry.

Since 1992, the tageszeitung has been owned by over 5000 paying members. It has a circulation of over 60,000, with almost 50,000 subscriptions. In 1995, it was the first German national newspaper to make the whole content of every daily issue available on the internet.

From the beginning, the tageszeitung appeared in a nation-wide edition as well as in a Berlin local edition. Over the years, local editorial offices for North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg and Bremen were added. The survival of the latter two is highly questionable at the moment and their merger into one office for the whole of north Germany has been delayed only recently, following protests by the local staff.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The "Potato-Affair"

On 26 June 2006 die tageszeitung published an article on its last page, headlined Die Wahrheit (the truth) that is reserved for satire and nonsense. It was titled Polens neue Kartoffel. Schurken, die die Welt beherrschen wollen. Heute: Lech „Katsche“ Kaczynski (Poland's new potatoes. Rogues who want to rule the world. Today: Lech „Katsche“ Kaczynski).^[1] This article satirized the Polish politicians Lech Kaczyński and Jarosław Kaczyński. Lech Kaczyński then cancelled talks that were scheduled between Germany, Poland and France (the Weimar Triangle), officially for reasons of sickness.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Literature

• taz - die tageszeitung. Die Tageszeitung Verlagsgenossenschaft e. G., Berlin 1.1987,1ff. ISSN 0931-9085
• Oliver Tolmein/Detlef zum Winkel: tazsachen. Kralle zeigen - Pfötchen geben. Hamburg 1988. ISBN 3922144764
• Jörg Magenau: Die taz. Eine Zeitung als Lebensform. München 2007, ISBN 978-3-446-20942-8
• Nora Münz: Links und liebenswert. Nutzungsmotive von Lesern der tageszeitung (taz). In: Senta Pfaff-Rüdiger / Michael Meyen (Hg.): Alltag, Lebenswelt und Medien. Lit Verlag. Münster 2007. S. 215-235. ISBN 978-3-8258-0897-6

[edit] External links

• taz website (in German)