Der Standard

Der Standard is an Austrian national daily newspaper which is published in Vienna (although the paper is produced in Tulln an der Donau in Lower Austria due to that Bundesland's lower taxes). It was founded by Oscar Bronner as a financial newspaper and the first edition was published on 1988-10-19. Bronner remains the paper's publisher and he is also nominally the editor-in-chief along with Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, who handles the day-to-day editing. When Föderl-Schmid took over from Gerfried Sperl in July 2007, Der Standard became the first Austrian newspaper to have a female editor-in-chief. Der Standard sees itself as - in Continental European sense (social and cultural, but not economical) - liberal and independent.

Although Der Standard is intended to be a national paper, in the past it had an undeniable tendency to focus on Vienna. This tendency has been lessened by the opening of editorial offices in the provinces (currently Styria, Upper Austria and Carinthia) and the introduction of regional sections. Der Standard is a paper from which the foreign media readily quote when an opinion from the Austrian press is required. Der Standard is one of Austria's best-selling quality newspapers and on 2005-06-18 celebrated its 5000th edition.

Der Standard is published in accordance with the honour code of the Austrian press (which sets rules on matters such as a transparent division between news and comment and the right to privacy). The paper's general editorial stance could be described as socially liberal and most of its regular columnists also tend to this position, although guest writers come from a wide variety of political positions. As a participant in Project Syndicate Der Standard also regularly publishes commentary from individuals with an international reputation, whose work has worldwide distribution as part of this project.

Der Standard is published by Standard Verlagsgesellschaft m. b. H. In August 2008, the newly created Bronner Online AG bought 49% of the shares of this company, which Süddeutsche Verlag had previously owned. The Bronner Family Foundation has long owned 41% of the shares, and Oskar Bronner himself owns the remaining 10%. Süddeutsche Verlag had bought into the company in December 1998; previously, between 1988 and April 1995, Axel Springer Verlag had owned 50% of the shares.

According to the 2007 Austrian Media Analysis Der Standard has 352,000 readers in Austria, which corresponds to a 5% share of all readers. With a share of 19.4%, Der Standard is the most widely read newspaper among people with college or university education. A full online edition (Der Standard digital) is available as an e-paper on a subscription-basis.

Der Standard has run its own web portal - derstandard.at - since February 1995 and claims this was the first appearance of a German-language newspaper on the web. In March 2006, according to Die Österreichische Webanalyse [1], derstandard.at had a readership of 1,137,111 users and is consequently one of the largest and most wide-ranging web portals in Austria. Articles published online can be commented on by registered users. The portal diestandard.at publishes articles on women's issues and feminism.

Since 2005 the paper has published The New York Times International Weekly on Mondays. It is a six-page supplement featuring selected English language articles from The New York Times.

Der Standard participates in Atomium Culture, the Permanent Platform for European Excellence that brings together some of the most authoritative European universities, newspapers and businesses to increase the movement of knowledge: across borders, across sectors and to the public at large.

Sources

This article is largely a translation of the corresponding German Wikipedia article as of 2005-08-23.

External links

• derstandard.at (in German)
• Der Standard digital (Subscription-only e-paper - in German)
• diestandard.at (in German)