Westfälische Rundschau

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Westfälische Rundschau
logo
description German daily newspaper
publishing company Funke media group
First edition March 20, 1946
Frequency of publication Monday to Saturday
Sold edition 58,070 copies
Editor-in-chief Jost Lübben
editor (Publishing company)
Web link www.wr.de
Article archive www.wr.de/artikel-archiv
ZDB 126017-0

Westfälische Rundschau (WR) is a daily newspaper title from the Funke media group , which is used as an umbrella brand for several media offers from various media companies.

Originally it was a regional daily newspaper based in Dortmund , with local editions in the Westphalian part of the Ruhr area and in southern Westphalia . In 2013, the entire editorial team was dismissed, and in 2014 the publishing company Zeitungsverlag Westfalen GmbH & Co. KG filed for bankruptcy. There has been no independent medium since then. Instead, the brand continues to be used as an additional title for editorial products from other media that have been completely adopted.

The commission to determine the concentration in the media sector carries three newspaper titles under the brand, which are published by three publishers:

  • The Westfälische Rundschau (issues Dortmund area) is published by Westfälischer Zeitungsverlag GmbH & Co KG , based in Essen , which is 52.4 percent owned by Funke Medien NRW GmbH and 47.6 percent by Funke Sport GmbH , also based in Eat.
  • The Westfälische Rundschau (issues in southern Westphalia) is published directly by Funke Medien NRW GmbH .
  • The Westfälische Rundschau (Unna / Kamen editions) is published by Zeitungsverlag Unna GmbH & Co KG , a wholly-owned subsidiary of the newspaper printing company Rubens GmbH & Co KG based in Unna , which is associated with, among others, the former competitor Ruhr Nachrichten and the Lensing Media group is.

In the self-presentation of the business fields of the Funke media group, the "newspaper title Westfälische Rundschau" with "headquarters Dortmund" is listed. In addition, Dortmund is named as the "headquarters of the central editorial office" and the editor-in-chief of the Hagen- based Westfalenpost , Jost Lübben , as the WR editor-in-chief .

The content of the online offer www.wr.de is identical to the Funke portals Westfalenpost , Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and Neue Ruhr Zeitung . The service provider is Funke Medien NRW GmbH , Essen is given as the seat and the editor-in-chief of the Westfalenpost , Jost Lübben, is also given as the editor-in-chief .

history

Foundation and independent publisher

The Westfälische Rundschau was a new establishment and, as a licensed newspaper, was also a new type of newspaper due to the requirements of the British military government. But there are also strong ideational and personal connections to the press landscape of the Weimar Republic . The SPD politicians and licensees Fritz Henßler , Paul Sattler and Heinrich Sträter saw the WR as the successor to the General-Anzeiger (GA), which was dissolved by the National Socialists in 1933 . The GA was the daily newspaper with the highest circulation outside of Berlin until its entire company assets were confiscated and the newspaper was then continued by the NSDAP as the party newspaper Westfälische Landeszeitung - Rote Erde for the Gau Westfalen-Süd . To this day, the WR bears the name “GeneralAnzeiger” as an addition to the newspaper title. The social democratic Westfälische Allgemeine Volks-Zeitung (WAVZ), whose editor-in-chief was Fritz Henßler until 1933 , is also regarded as a forerunner .

The first step took place on October 23, 1945 with the establishment of the Westfälische Verlagsgesellschaft, in which the WR appeared until 1975. The original purpose of the foundation was to bring an SPD newspaper back into being based on the WAVZ, which was banned in 1933. Although licenses were given preference to people who had been active opponents of National Socialism and were close to the re-approved or newly founded parties, the British military government did not want the revival of old-style party newspapers or of the mass newspapers of the so-called General-Anzeiger-Presse . The future papers should contribute to democratization and, as regional newspapers with many editorial offices, cover as large areas as possible. From March 20, 1946, the first edition was produced in the former printing house of the GA and WAVZ at Bremer Strasse 16 in Dortmund, which was destroyed in the war and poorly restored. Due to the lack of paper and the regulations by the military government, this initially only comprised four pages and appeared two days a week.

Until it was taken over by the WAZ Group, the distribution area of ​​the WR included the central Ruhr area with Bochum , Herne , Gelsenkirchen and today's Recklinghausen district in addition to the Dortmund region and southern Westphalia .

Takeover by the WAZ Group

Until the mid-1970s, the WR majority belonged to the SPD media holding, the Deutsche Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft (DDVG). In 1975 the until then competing Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung bought the majority of the newspaper. The WR appeared from then on in the newspaper publishing house Westfalen GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft Essen-Dortmund , 86.9 percent of which belonged to WAZ and 13.1 percent to DDVG via the Westfälische Verlagsgesellschaft.

Together with the competing newspapers Neue Ruhr Zeitung and Westfalenpost , which were acquired at almost the same time , the company formed the WAZ newspaper group from the four daily newspapers . The publishing house dealt with the purchased titles in a new way: the publishing business was merged and the advertising parts were identical in each local area. At the same time, both the main and local editorial offices of the purchased newspapers were largely retained and continued to publish independently. In this way, the company avoided subscription cancellations due to the disappearance of traditional newspapers and was able to minimize conflicts with merger control . This combination of an economic monopoly with journalistic competition within a company became known as the "WAZ model". It proved to be very successful, especially through the implementation of high prices in the advertising market, and was later copied by other publishers.

In 1980 the central and local editorial offices in Dortmund moved into the Rundschau-Haus on Brüderweg. The printing was relocated to the printing and publishing center of the WAZ newspaper group ("Westdruck") in Hagen-Bathey.

The Rundschau House in Dortmund

By the end of 2005 there was also an edition in Betzdorf in Rhineland-Palatinate on the city limits to Siegen in Westphalia. As of 2006, the WR appeared in the independent cities of Dortmund and Hagen as well as the districts of Unna , Olpe , Siegen-Wittgenstein , Hochsauerlandkreis , Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis and parts of the Märkisches Kreis and the Soest district . In the course of austerity measures in the WAZ media group, various editorial offices, especially in South Westphalia, were merged with the local editorial office of the Westfalenpost or closed completely. As of January 2013, 24 local editions are still being produced.

The Westfälische Rundschau was hardest hit by the already heavy circulation losses of the Funke media group in North Rhine-Westphalia ( WR , WAZ , WP and NRZ ) : Between 2008 and 2013 alone, the circulation fell by 30,000 to 115,000 copies.

Dissolution of the editorial offices and the publishing house

Since February 2, 2013, the WR has only appeared as a newspaper title without its own editorial team. The editorial pages are obtained from the company's own newspapers, but also from daily newspapers that were previously competing economically and politically. In September 2014, newspaper publisher Westfalen filed for insolvency proceedings.

On January 15, 2013, the management of the WAZ media group announced that it would close the central and local editorial offices of the WR, dismiss the 120 editorial staff and draw up a social plan. The majority shareholder announced that the title of the newspaper should be retained. The shell part of the WR has been completely created in the “Content Desk” of the WAZ media group since February 2, 2013. WAZ editor-in-chief Ulrich Reitz initiated this in 2009 as a concept for a central editorial office for three of the four daily newspapers of the WAZ media group in North Rhine-Westphalia: the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , the Westfälische Rundschau and the Neue Rhein / Neue Ruhr Zeitung .

Since then, the central editorial offices have been using the offer to design the content of their cover pages, but also had their own independent title editorial offices, which were supposed to ensure that the individual titles could be distinguished in terms of content and design. The local parts at the previous locations of the WR will either be taken over by the Westfalenpost or by newspaper publishers outside the publishing house, some of which have previously been competing economically and in terms of opinion. The local section in Dortmund and Lünen was produced by the previous competitor Ruhr Nachrichten . The local edition of Plettenberg / Herscheid in the Märkisches Kreis has been produced by the Süderländer Tageblatt (company Hundt GmbH) since February 1, 2013 , the editions Lüdenscheid / Halver, Altena / Nachrodt and Werdohl / Neuenrade by the Märkische Zeitungsverlag. All of these issues were completely discontinued on January 1, 2014.

The WAZ media group justified the closure of the entire newspaper editorial office with the fact that the WR had lost 50 million euros in the past five years alone. It did not provide any details on this deficit. In response, the SPD- owned media holding company, Deutsche Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft (DDVG), sold its minority stake of 13.1 percent in Zeitungsverlag Westfalen GmbH & Co. KG to the WAZ media group (since March 2013 Funke Mediengruppe). In addition, the SPD media holding sold its shares in the printing and publishing center in Hagen. The WAZ media group paid 16 million euros for this, making it the sole shareholder of the ZVW and the publishing house in Hagen, which prints around 600,000 newspapers every day.

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In September 2014, the Funke Mediengruppe announced that the Westfälische Zeitungsverlag - which also includes the Westfälische Rundsch au - had filed an application to open insolvency proceedings under self- administration.

Distribution area and edition

In 2019 the total print run was 58,070 copies.

Editors-in-chief

  • Walter Poller (1946–1961): Poller (* 1900; † 1961) was an editor at a Hammer SPD newspaper from 1919 to 1933. Was sentenced by the National Socialists to four years in prison for activity in the resistance and interned for two years in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
  • Hans Wunderlich (1961–1964): Wunderlich (* 1899; † 1977) was an editor for the Free Press (Osnabrück) in the Weimar Republic . During the Nazi era he was arrested in connection with the Hitler assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. Was a member of the Parliamentary Council in 1948 and was one of the founders of the Basic Law. Until his appointment as editor-in-chief, he was head of the WR's Politics department.
  • Wolfgang Voges (1965–1968): Voges (* 1925; † 1992) was initially editor at Berliner Morgen (daily newspaper in the GDR), then head of the Bonn and Cologne editorial offices of the Bild newspaper. After his time at the WR , Voges went to the Federal Government's Press and Information Office in Bonn.
  • Günter Hammer (1968–1988): Hammer (* 1922; † 1993) has been WR editor since 1949 , and in politics since 1960. Was also a member of the Broadcasting Council and the Administrative Council of Westdeutscher Rundfunk. After his time as editor-in-chief, Hammer was editor of the WR.
  • Frank Bünte (1988–2004): Bünte (* 1939) volunteered at the WR , worked for two years in the political department and in 1972 took over the management of the economic department before becoming editor-in-chief.
  • Klaus Schrotthofer (2004–2007): Schrotthofer (* 1966) began his journalistic career at Augsburger Allgemeine . Numerous managerial positions followed ( Focus , Kölner Stadtanzeiger , Berliner Zeitung ). Before being appointed editor-in-chief of the WR , he was spokesman for Federal President Johannes Rau .
  • Kathrin Lenzer (2008): Lenzer (* 1971), like WAZ editor-in-chief Ulrich Reitz, came from the rather conservative Düsseldorf Rheinische Post , where she was head of department. The first woman in this function left the WR that same year after differences of opinion within the editorial team. Today she is co-owner of a media consulting company.
  • Malte Hinz (since December 2008): Hinz (* 1953) began his journalistic career in 1971 with a traineeship at Hellweger Anzeiger (Unna). He moved to WR in 1977 and was in charge of the local editorial office in Lünen until he moved to the chief editor. From 1985 to 2008 he was chairman of the newspaper publisher Westphalia, 2004-2008 also national chairman of the DJU ( German Journalists' Union ) in the services union Ver.di . Even after the editorial office closed, Hinz remained in the position of editor-in-chief.

Well-known editors

  • Kurt Koszyk (* 1929 in Dortmund; † 2015 in Munich) first studied in Münster, then at the University of Munich and received his doctorate in 1953 with a historical thesis on the history of the social democratic press in the Ruhr area. He then worked as a journalist and editor at WR until 1957. He then headed the Institute for Newspaper Research in Dortmund. From 1969 to 1974 he was professor for journalism and communication science at the Ruhr University Bochum. In 1977 Koszyk became a founding professor of the journalism course at the PH Hochschule Ruhr, Dortmund department (today the Institute for Journalism at the University of Dortmund).
  • The former KPD member of the state parliament, Kurt Lichtenstein , was employed by the WR in 1958 . During a report trip in October 1961 along the inner-German border , he was shot dead by border troops of the GDR near Brome -Zicherie on October 12, 1961 .
  • From 1973 to 1981 Wolfgang Clement was Head of Politics and Deputy Editor-in-Chief. He later became Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and Federal Minister of Economics (“super minister”) in Schröder's 2nd cabinet.
  • After completing his studies, the investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker (* 1949 in Brühl / Rhineland) was a news editor and reporter in the WR editorial team until 1979 . He then worked for Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung .

Web links

literature

  • Klaus Schrotthofer (Ed.): Stories from Westphalia, 60 years of the Westfälische Rundschau . Klartext, Essen 2006, ISBN 3-89861-577-4 .
  • Andreas Feser: Wealth power and media influence: party-owned companies and equal opportunities for the parties . Book on Demand , 2003, ISBN 3-8330-0347-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Westfälische Rundschau in the KEK media database. In: Commission to determine the concentration in the media sector . Retrieved March 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ Westfälische Rundschau as a title in the "Print Business Area". In: Website of the Funke media group. Retrieved March 29, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Imprint from www.wr.de. In: Website of Funke Medien NRW GmbH. Retrieved March 29, 2020 .
  4. ^ Fritz Michael: Dortmund . The profile of a city. Crüwell / Schropp, Dortmund 1969.
  5. ↑ Media database. Commission to determine concentration in the media sector, archived from the original on February 17, 2013 ; accessed on March 30, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Our holdings. Deutsche Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, archived from the original on February 26, 2013 ; accessed on March 30, 2020 .
  7. ↑ The super savings model: How the WAZ Group trims its newspapers for profit. In: Manager Magazin. December 4, 1998, accessed March 30, 2020 .
  8. ^ WAZ group. After the mines, the newspapers die . In: FAZ , January 28, 2013; accessed on February 6, 2015
  9. ↑ WAZ group closes editorial offices of the Westfälische Rundschau , accessed on March 7, 2013
  10. ↑ a b Funke's newspaper zombie slips into bankruptcy . DWDL.de, September 26, 2014; accessed on February 6, 2015
  11. ↑ Subscription slump at newspaper group WAZ: readers do not like uniformity. In: The daily newspaper. August 21, 2009, accessed March 30, 2020 .
  12. ↑ 120 editors and editorial staff affected: From the editorial staff of the "Westfälische Rundschau" , accessed on January 15, 2013
  13. ↑ SPD media holding sells shares in the Westfälische Rundschau . World online ; Retrieved March 7, 2013
  14. ↑ funkemedien.de
  15. ↑ Exclusive: How Funke's WAZ has shrunk April 24, 2019
  16. ↑ CV. lenzerundpartner.com