Leeuwarder Courant

The Leeuwarder Courant is a Dutch regional newspaper with an editorial office in Leeuwarden . The newspaper appears Monday through Saturday in broadsheet format . The newspaper is published by NDC Mediagroep, with main offices in Leeuwarden and Groningen , which also publishes Dagblad van het Noorden . The paid circulation in the first quarter of 2008 was 91,036 copies. The editor-in-chief is Hans Snijder.

history

The Leeuwarder Courant was first published in 1752 under the editorship of Abraham Ferwerda and is the oldest newspaper in the Netherlands, which still appears with the original name. Until 1757 it only appeared on Saturdays, then also on Thursdays, until it finally became a daily newspaper in 1879.

In its orientation, the newspaper followed a strictly bourgeois course, which could mean that the local hunger riots of 1892 were not reflected in the newspaper because they were outside the newspaper's value system. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, there was a gradual opening towards more popular topics; Strips , reports , feature articles were added, but until the 1930s interviews were considered too intimate.

During the German occupation in World War II , the pressure on the newspaper gradually increased. While certain freedoms could still be maintained up to June 1941, in September 1942 a forced merger with the rival newspaper Leeuwarder Nieuwsblad under the name Friesche Courant and the appointment of an editor-in-chief close to the new rulers who hoped for a revival of Frisian nationalism had to be accepted. Since the Leeuwarder Courant could not appear again immediately after the war due to the denazification of the Dutch press, the director of the newspaper teamed up with the makers of the underground newspaper Je Maintiendrai and published de Leeuwarder Koerier with them . Je Maintiendrai had originally hoped for a ban on the Leeuwarder Courant in order to get a free run, when it turned out that it could appear again, Je Maintiendrai was converted into a foundation and became a shareholder in the newspaper. The foundation still exists today.

Compared to other (supra) regional newspapers in the Netherlands, the Leeuwarder Courant has not lost quite as much circulation since the turn of the millennium. Marcel Broersma, author of a doctoral dissertation on the newspaper published as a book (see section " Further reading "), believes that the Leeuwarder Courant's long-term success is based on a careful journalistic style and continuity.

In collaboration with "Tresoar", a center for Frisian history and literature, a digital archive of all newspapers since the first edition in 1752 was created. On its history during the German occupation in World War II, the newspaper published a CD-ROM for a fee and a website linked to it, in which it wants to provide a detailed insight into material from that time.This project is called De pers draaide door (Die Presse continue).

Others

On June 12, 2001, an edition appeared for the first time that was entirely in West Frisian . A Dutch translation was enclosed with the newspaper.

Used literature

Jan van de Plasse: Kroniek van de Nederlandse dagblad- en opiniepers / seed gesteld by Jan van de Plasse. Red. Wim Verbei , Otto Cramwinckel Uitgever, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-75727-77-1 . (Dutch; earlier edition: Jan van de Plasse, Kroniek van de Nederlandse dagbladpers , Cramwinckel, Amsterdam 1999, ISBN 90-75727-25-9 )