The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” is planning to withdraw from regional reporting. Offices in the districts are to be closed.
The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” is giving up the independent regional sections of its newspaper editions in the Munich area. Instead, the topics from these regions are bundled together. In the future, all print subscribers in the districts around Munich will receive, in addition to the Munich and Bavaria section, two pages a day with the best stories from the region around the state capital, as Süddeutsche Verlag announced upon request.
According to the Verdi union, the previous district expenditure of the “SZ” in Freising/Erding, Fürstenfeldbruck, Dachau, Wolfratshausen and Ebersberg will be affected by the cuts. As the union said in a statement, the approximately 60 employees there were informed at an extraordinary conference on Wednesday by the editor-in-chief and the department management that the SZ would be giving up the branch offices in the districts that were once there in the 1970s were built.
Only the Starnberg edition and the Munich district would retain a certain degree of independence because of the comparatively stable circulation there, but would then also be assigned to the Munich and Bavaria parts.
The responsible “SZ” department head (Munich, region, Bavaria), René Hofmann, said when asked: “As a result of this reform there will be no operational dismissals.” The model is coordinated between the editor-in-chief, department management and the publisher.
The “SZ” is also placing greater emphasis on digital: it also wants to grow even more strongly in digital subscriptions in the region, according to the statement. “These topics are planned and managed by experienced local editors in Munich who are very familiar with the region around Munich.”
On behalf of the Verdi union, the Bavarian state chairman of the German Journalists’ Union (dju) in Verdi, Franz Kotteder, said: “This is a serious blow to local journalism and press diversity in the region around Munich.” Kotteder is himself a member of the “SZ” editorial team. The measures affect not only numerous permanent editors and editorial assistants, but also layout designers, page planners, freelancers for the texts, and also photographers, some of whom are now being deprived of their livelihood.
According to Verdi, it was also announced on Wednesday on the sidelines of the extraordinary conference that the SZ also wanted to make further savings in other editorial departments: in particular in the Society and Weekend editorial departments as well as in the business editorial department, flat-rate employees had already been terminated at the end of the year.
