The Week (1993-2002)

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The week
Week 10-1993.jpg
description Weekly newspaper
publishing company Seasons publisher
Headquarters Hamburg
First edition February 18, 1993
attitude March 8, 2002
founder Manfred Bissinger
Frequency of publication weekly / thursdays
executive Director Klaus Teichmann (from 2000)
Web link woche.de ( Memento from March 4, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
ISSN (print) 0945-2125

Die Woche was a German weekly newspaper published by the Ganske publishing group from 1993 to 2002 . The newspaper had a left-liberal orientation and was intended to be a "counter pole" to the weekly Die Zeit . Die Woche received several awards for its innovative design .

Publication history

The journalist and publicist Manfred Bissinger , who founded and published the newspaper, was also editor-in-chief until the end of 2000, followed by Hans-Ulrich Jörges (January to December 2001) and Sabine Rosenbladt (December 2001 to March 2002). The publisher Thomas Ganske supported the weekly newspaper “as a journalistic and publishing coronation of his house”.

In the past three years Die Woche had a circulation of around 130,000 to 135,000 copies and 35,000 subscribers. It was published on Thursdays with a length of 38–42 pages. In terms of journalistic style and a modern look, it should be a younger and contemporary competitor to the other Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit . "Compared to 'Zeit', the appearance of the 'week' was a small revolution."

The editorial team of the week had "always around 50 [...] journalists and columnists" like Till Briegleb , Frank Nordhausen , Marc Pitzke , Susanne Fischer , Petra Thorbrietz , Anna Mikula, Bernd Gäbler , Oliver Herrgesell and Anne Urbauer . The week also saw itself “as an author's paper and will henceforth work with well-known columnists and authors such as Manfred Bissinger, Ulrich Wickert , Professor Wilhelm Hankel , Frank Lehmann , Michael Juergs , Tilman Spengler , Jürgen Flimm .” Other authors included Horst Stern , Sigrid Löffler , Peter Glotz , Mathias Bröckers , Henryk M. Broder (= Sarah Silberstein), Wolfgang Storz , Jürgen Kesting . From the beginning, the television presenter and publicist Roger Willemsen wrote a weekly column. Bissinger gave him an absolutely free hand.

The week appeared as the first fully colored weekly newspaper in Germany and received several awards for its "extraordinary design". Contrasting fonts , a colored orientation system made up of bars and squares, colored symbols and reduced characters increased the readability. For leaf design as were art director Lo Breier and from 1997 Dirk Linke responsible.

It was also new - “in view of the lack of controversial public disputes on fundamental issues” - to allow opposing opinions to be expressed, occasionally even on the front page. This made Die Woche “style-setting for the newspaper market”. It was also the first newspaper to establish a permanent page on the media industry. The week was also the first newspaper in Germany to adopt the new spelling rules . Bissinger later considered this decision to be a “mistake” and described the introduction as “premature”.

From the beginning, the week faced strong competition from Focus , which was founded almost at the same time by Burda-Verlag, and the former East German newspaper Wochenpost , which Gruner + Jahr had distributed nationwide from 1991 onwards. At the beginning of 1997 Die Woche took over the weekly post , which appeared as a supplement until May 1997. Sales negotiations of the week in February 2002 with the Essen-based WAZ group failed because the negotiator Bodo Hombach wanted to buy Jahreszeiten Verlag as well as the week . On March 8, 2002 the newspaper had to be closed due to a lack of economic viability.

Bissinger is of the opinion that "with the digitization of the media world [.] It has become unlikely that a magazine or newspaper with a comprehensive range of topics outside narrow market niches will ever again be founded." The week was "not too little ." Readers failed; the advertisements were simply missing. ”According to Schmidt and Bernhardt, one of the reasons for the failure was inadequate marketing and insufficient acquisition activity by constantly changing managing directors:“ Die Woche ”would have required its own advertising team that could draw on experience in acquiring suitable companies and institutions The Jahreszeiten Verlag specialized in “women's and premium magazines” and therefore had no contacts or experience with advertisers for political newspapers. In addition, the newspaper editors remained a foreign body in the publishing house, "they were two worlds that did not harmonize."

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ulrike Simon: "The week": shadow plants. In: Tagesspiegel , February 19, 2000.
  2. ↑ a b c Clemens von Frentz, Lutz Reiche: After nine years the end came. In: manager magazin , March 6, 2002.
  3. ↑ Britta Gansebohm: Sabine Rosenbladt. In: The Literary Salon , 2008, accessed on February 19, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b c Uwe Göbel: Magazine design in transition. In: Journalism. Quarterly Bulletins for Communication Research , 2002, No. 3.
  5. ↑ Manfred Bissinger: Personal statement. Week co-founder Manfred Bissinger on the discontinuation of the weekly newspaper. ( Memento of April 2, 2002 in the Internet Archive ). In: Die Woche , March 2002.
  6. ↑ Till Briegleb : The self-righteous. With unprecedented ruthlessness, Marcel Reich-Ranicki battered his legendary reputation as the literary pope. ( Memento of December 3, 2000 in the Internet Archive ). In: Die Woche , August 18, 2000, No. 34.
  7. ↑ To the story of the week. ( Memento of April 2, 2002 in the Internet Archive ). In: Die Woche , March 2002.
  8. ↑ Dominik Betz, Gregor Haschnik: The polemicist. In: Telepolis , February 14, 2009, interview.
  9. ↑ Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 210.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Storz. In: bild-studie.de , accessed on October 4, 2017.
  11. ↑ Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 201.
  12. ↑ Manfred Bissinger: Love in Truth. In: Hundredvierzehn.de - the literary online magazine from S. Fischer Verlag , February 22, 2016.
  13. ↑ Rosvita Krausz: Memories of Roger Willemsen. Free spirit and philanthropist. In: Deutschlandfunk , Radio-Feature , May 12, 2017, 50 min., Manuscript as PDF; (24 p., 421 kB) and as an audio file.
  14. ↑ a b weekly newspaper: »Die Woche« is discontinued. In: stern.de , March 6, 2002.
  15. ↑ Markus Weber: ADC Award: Editorial designer Lo Breier is chairman of the ADC jury. In: Advertising & Selling ( W&V ), February 26, 2014.
  16. ↑ Dirk Linke advises Ganske Verlagsgruppe. In: horizont.net , August 16, 2000.
  17. ↑ a b c instead of a foreword. Manfred Bissinger in conversation with Roger Willemsen . In: Lauter Widerworte , ISBN 978-3-455-50206-0 , pp. 11-28.
  18. ↑ Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 209.
  19. ^ Dpa : Manfred Bissinger - a special media maker. ( Memento from May 13, 2017 in the archive.today web archive ). In: Hamburger Abendblatt , October 4, 2015.
  20. ↑ Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 201.
  21. ↑ Schmidt, Bernhard 2019, p. 203.
  22. ↑ What is the difference between the Oscar in Hollywood and the ADC medals in Berlin? In: kressreport , March 13, 1998.
  23. ↑ List of winners: World's Best-Designed ™ winners. In: Society for News Design , accessed November 2, 2019.
  24. ^ Norbert Küpper : 2nd European Newspaper Award (2000) #Die Woche. In: editorial-design.com , pp. 33–37, (English), accessed on November 2, 2019.