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=====       16-01-2016       =====
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I have always been an avid reader of newspapers. I grew up in the
"golden age" of German newspapers (the late 80s of the last
century). We lived in a townhouse, the neighbours to the left and
to the right were families with children my age, who became
friends, supporting each other wherever they could. We all shared
our newspapers and in that way I was able to read them all: DER
SPIEGEL, DIE ZEIT, DIE WELT etc. The FAZ was considered "too
conservative", so nobody subscribed to it. But I went to the news
stand and bought it from my pocket money. At that time the weeklies
were as thick as a paperback, the articles sometimes 4 or 5 pages
long, printed on pages that were almost half the size of my
duvet. My parents could besides their job at best manage to read
some of the articles, but even for me, who did nothing else than
reading books and newspapers, it was impossible to get through all
that stuff before freshly printed copies would arrive at our home.

The quality of the writing was fabulous and so was the
self-confidence of the journalists. In his memoirs the famous chief
editor of the arts section in DIE ZEIT, Fritz J. Raddatz,
remembered the scene that happened every once a week when they
managed to send the layout to the printing house: the staff would
open a case of french champagne, celebrating that "We had once
again published a copy of the best Feuilleton (literary and arts
section) of the world. I know, that sounds bourgeois and arrogant,
but possibly they were the best of the world. I at least have
learned a lot from those authors. Later, at university, I got
essays back with the remark "sounds like an author of DIE
ZEIT". That was meant as a critique: an academic shouldn't write
that way. But for me it was an accolade: I was proud that the
authors I considered my teachers would show through in my writing
style.

When I think about the reasons why that period was especially
favorable for quality newspapers one has to look at the development
of the West-German society in the 60s: the numbers of students were
steadily on the rise and talented graduates - especially in the
humanities - that would otherwise have made a brilliant academic
career would turn to the newspapers looking for jobs. Those were
the people that hoisted the newspapers to a new level.

It is obvious that from such heights it can only go downhill. Today
reading German newspapers can be a painful pleasure. So much is
going wrong that it is difficult to single out the most significant
mistakes. I will only mention one of the most embarassing that I
would name "the duplication of other media" in newspaper
articles. It was starting some ten years ago, when I saw more and
more articles that pretended to be a review of TV shows. In fact
they were a duplication in another medium: the written text. You
would read what you had already seen on TV the night before (what
was dreadfully boring) or even worse what you had missed, in which
case the article wouldn't give you a clue. And today you will find
articles who's author makes the stupid attempt to reproduce a
conversation on twitter (enriched with screen-shots from time to
time, when running out of words). These journalists will never open
a bottle of champagne in lofty self-awareness and some of them may
even fall in despair and think about what to do when the proud ship
is finally driven on ground.