TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG "Editorial" issue of Friday, June 30, 2023, by Michael Sprenger: "1703–2023"

2023-06-29 20:00:31

Innsbruck (OTS) – What remains of black and green? When the occasion arises, a balance sheet must be drawn. But it is official that this government has failed in terms of media policy. At the end of the “Wiener Zeitung”, the oldest daily newspaper in the world. A disillusionment.

In times when tabloids are lavishly fed by the public sector with advertisements, the oldest daily newspaper in the world is being buried today. In times when the print media appear with bare front pages as a protest against the planned ORF amendment, the Wiener Zeitung disappears from the market. In times when the depoliticization of public service broadcasting is not even attempted, there was probably no money for a public service daily newspaper. In times when fake news is becoming a threat to society, the last issue of the quality newspaper, which has existed for 320 years, is being published. At a time when Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen warns that liberal democracy will shudder and recognizes gloom, the print product of the Wiener Zeitung is discontinued.
For a long time there was a fight to keep the newspaper, which “despite the most adverse conditions strictly adhered to high quality standards and thus demonstrated courage, independence and critical distance” (reason of the jury that awarded this year’s Kurt Vorhofer Prize to the Wiener Zeitung) . But the owner representatives of the republic, i.e. the politicians from the ÖVP and the Greens, remained stubborn to the end. They alone are responsible for leaving the Wiener Zeitung. Austria, a country that rightly prides itself on its cultural past and present, is losing a cultural asset today.
There were offers to continue the paper, and not only the editors claim that. Only the government didn’t want to know anything about it, didn’t want to give up the brand or the name. On August 8th, the Wienerisches Diarium, as the Wiener Zeitung was called in its early days in 1703, was published for the first time in the old residential city. On June 30, 2023 it will be over with her.
All this is an expression of a government’s media policy that simply does not deserve the name. The fact that the Greens also took part in this brutal media-political act is resented by those cultural workers who have been fighting for the newspaper to be preserved for weeks. SPÖ, FPÖ and NEOS appealed to the government in parliament to refrain from converting the print product into a digital medium. But the ÖVP and the Greens are still convinced that the chosen solution is the best. And what did the head of state once say about Aus der Wiener Zeitung? “If a government often does things that it doesn’t like, then this parliamentary majority will feel the consequences in the next elections.” A prospect.