In addition to books, for some 500 years now newspapers and magazines have been a medium that as regards content, form and dissemination may well have been constantly modernized, but whose basic structure has remained more or less the same, despite the continued emergence of new media. Now, as ever, the press stands for in-depth analysis and background reporting, addressing specific topics, and comment. The partial dissolving of fixed ideological convictions along the classical spectrum of left and right was accompanied in part by the disappearance of a clear cut political allegiance on the part of the press. Several publications are still considered to be highly influential, for example national quality newspapers such as “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and the traditional weekly “Die Zeit”.

The German newspaper market is characterized by a large number of publications and regional differences. Alongside 335 local and regional daily newspapers there are ten national dailies, ten quality publications and nine so-called popular newspapers that concentrate on general interest matters. In this category the influential “Bild”-Zeitung, which is published by Axel Springer Verlag and has a circulation of 3.2 million, is the only national newspaper to play an outstanding role. Overall the total circulation figures for some 350 German daily newspapers come to 25 million. However, the financial footing of the classic daily press is under pressure: The younger generation is reading fewer newspapers and advertising revenue, the most important financial pillar of the press, is clearly declining on the back of the financial crisis of 2008-09; furthermore, all manner of content tends to be procured from the Internet, which among almost all age groups has now advanced to become a leading medium. Some 70 percent of all Germans are now “online”; just as many read a daily newspaper on a regular basis.

In the German newspaper market an increasing number of special interest publications has appeared alongside the popular magazines over the past few years. The entire range of popular magazines includes some 1,500 publications and boasts a total average quarterly circulation of around 114 million. “Stern”, and “Der Spiegel”, which play an active role in discussion in society or have themselves been the subject of important discourse, are among the most widely-read publications. Of these, “Spiegel“, a weekly political journal with perhaps the greatest long-term influence on society of any weekly publication, is outstanding. The biggest publishers of popular magazines are Heinrich Bauer Verlag, Axel Springer Verlag, Burda and Gruner+Jahr, which is part of the Bertelsmann Group. Springer and Bertelsmann are also the two media corporations that by virtue of also owning successful radio and TV stations generate sales in the billions. This triggered a discussion about media concentration and the trans-media concentration of opinion.

There are now some, however, who consider that with the Internet there is automatic pluralism in terms of opinion. In addition to the online versions of print publications with high visitor figures such as Spiegel.de, bild.de and FAZ.NET, there is an unfathomable spectrum of news and opinion sites. As such, for the publishers there is a danger of mutual cannibalization between print and online, even though only a fraction of the readers/users overlaps. On the other hand the mixture of institutionalized and informal sources guarantees diversity. Accordingly the challenges for high-quality print journalism are to be found less in the trend to monopolies and far more in the question of financing the medium. Examples such as theeuropean.de are proof of the fact that quality journalism is not necessarily tied to the printed press.