This month, as Der Spiegel, a magazine, was firing its top two editors amid a long slump in circulation, Die Zeit, a newspaper, was celebrating record sales and big gains in advertising.
Their diverging fortunes underscore different approaches to news publishing in the digital era.
Der Spiegel has been the standard-bearer for investigative reporting in Germany since 1962, when its founder, Rudolf Augstein, prevailed in an important test of free speech for the still young Federal Republic of Germany. In the so-called Spiegel Affair, Mr. Augstein was arrested and accused of treason after the magazine published an exposé on the sorry state of German military readiness. The heavy-handed approach, orchestrated by the late Franz-Josef Strauss, then the defense minister, backfired, and Mr. Strauss was forced to resign.
Der Spiegel still prides itself on its adversarial tone. Last year, an advertising campaign for the magazine showed a picture of an editorial meeting, with the tag line, “the conference that makes politicians tremble.”
But other German publications and media organizations — broadsheets like Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, mass-market dailies like Bild and public broadcasters like ARD and ZDF — have begun to invest heavily in investigative reporting, and Der Spiegel no longer has a monopoly on scoops about political scandals.
“Der Spiegel is having a real problem finding a new road, when everyone is doing this kind of reporting,” said Klaus Meier, a journalism professor at the Catholic University of Eichstätt.
Three weeks ago, Der Spiegel dismissed Georg Mascolo, the editor of its print edition, and Mathias Müller von Blumencron, editor of Spiegel Online. Eschewing the floral tributes that often accompany changes of management in the news business, Der Spiegel said tersely that the two had been “fired, with immediate effect, because of irreconcilable differences over strategic direction.”
Insiders say Mr. Mascolo and Mr. von Blumencron had been cast aside because of an inability to work together on a plan to join the print and digital arms of Der Spiegel, which have been operating autonomously. Like other publications, Der Spiegel is looking for ways to generate more revenue online and wants to integrate its newsrooms before it begins charging readers for access to its Web site.
The backdrop to the management turmoil is a steep slide in sales of Der Spiegel. Circulation fell to 883,000 in the first quarter from more than 1 million as recently as 2009 and more than 1.1 million a decade ago. The number of advertising pages has fallen by half over the past decade.
The decline of Der Spiegel contrasts strikingly with the growth of Die Zeit. Since 2002, the newspaper’s circulation has risen 22 percent, reaching a record of 520,000 in the first quarter of this year. Advertising revenue has increased 74 percent, and circulation revenue 58 percent in that period.
The performance is especially striking because two other weekly newsmagazines in Germany, Stern and Focus, have also lost circulation. While Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are not necessarily direct competitors, given their different publishing formats, they reach similar audiences of affluent, well- educated readers.
What has Die Zeit done differently? Investigative reporting has never been the leitmotif of the newspaper, which was founded after World War II by a group led by Gerd Bucerius, a lawyer and politician. Unlike Der Spiegel, it has cultivated links with the establishment; Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor, now serves as publisher.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/technology/29iht-diezeit29.html?partner=rss&emc=rss