Die tageszeitung
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- The correct title of this article is die tageszeitung. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
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 business.
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.
[edit] External link
- taz website (in German)
