Süddeutsche Zeitung: A Showcase of Outstanding Journalism
Why Süddeutsche Zeitung has more to offer than traditional German newspapers.
In today’s endless stream of news, one can easily get lost. The digital evolution has caused a new way of consuming news, having them available anywhere at any time. Choosing the right news source in this clutter of platforms and social media pages can be difficult and overwhelming.
A good example of an outstanding practice of online journalism in Germany is Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, abbr. SZ, was founded more than 75 years ago, and has been online since 1995. Today it is the second largest daily newspaper in Germany.
The newspaper’s website consists of three different parts: SZ.de, which is the news portal, Zeitung, which is the online version of the printed paper, and Magazin, which is the online portal of the Friday supplement called “SZ Magazin”.
The overall design of the page is minimalistic, with a white background and black text, giving it a similar look to a traditional newspaper.
To help the reader find what they want to read about, there are different sections, featuring proposal of respective popular topics.
Süddeutsche Zeitung has a strong cultural focus, next to the daily news about politics and economics. There are sections exclusively dedicated to history, art, psychology, movies and more. Also, the website features short videos and a daily news podcast, making the consumption of news individually adaptable.
The approach to opinion based texts and comments is handled with a different approach, by providing forums for readers to discuss their points of view, and by indicating in the heading of each article if it is a subjective text.
The topics of the discussions are inspired by current news and events, and created by the editiorial. Readers also have the possibility to proposed a topic via email. Under the heading of each topic, articles and analyses are linked, to provide a base for the debate. Readers can then comment and reply to each other in a factual manner.
The business model of SZ is a mixture of a freemium- and metered model. Generally, every user has access to ten free articles per week. The abo SZ Plus enables the user to read all articles and additionally the digital version of the print newspaper. There is a variety of different options, depending on how many news one wants to consume.
Of course there is also an app, which subscribers can use for free.
The new email and WhatsApp newsletter SZ Espresso provides a compact news overview in the morning and in the evening, free of cost.
Süddeutsche Zeitung have official Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, on which they post regularly. Especially on the former two, SZ publish several post per day, mostly consisting of photos with short news teasers and links to the articles, but also videos and stories.
SZ engage their readers by offering a great variety of content, including different forms of media to present the news. Many interests are served and even young people are attracted by this modern approach. As the editor in chief, Wolfgang Krach, says “The SZ needs to something different” (Vimeo, 2020). And this is exactly what the newspaper succeeds in doing.
Süddeutsche Zeitung can be considered one of the best practices of digital journalism in Germany because the platform’s uniqueness and diversity. It is opinion-forming, on a national as well as on an international level.
Substantiated analysis and the strong research make SZ a trustworthy and reliable news source, which aims to inform and motivate its readers to reflect.
That is why Süddeutsche Zeitung has become “one of the investigative centres of modern information society” (freelance journalist Anna von Garmissen, 2017).
