Bild-Zeitung

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Bild-Zeitung

The Bild (formerly Bild-Zeitung, lit. Picture Newspaper) is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on Politics, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports....
published by Axel Springer AG

Axel Springer AG

Axel Springer AG is one of the largest newspaper publishing companies in Europe, having over 150 newspapers and magazines in over 30 countries, including several Central Europe and Eastern European countries: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and western European countries: Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, more than 10,000 e...
. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday, while on Sundays, Bild am Sonntag (lit. Picture on Sunday) is published instead, which has a different style and its own editors. Bild is tabloid

Tabloid

A tabloid is an industry term which refers to a smaller newspaper format per spread; to a weekly or semi-weekly alternative newspaper that focuses on local-interest stories and entertainment, often distributed free of charge ; or to a newspaper that tends to emphasize sensationalism crime stories, gossip columns repeating scandalous innuend...
in style, although actually broadsheet

Broadsheet

Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of matter, from ballads to political satire....
in size. It is the best-selling newspaper in Europe and has the seventh-largest circulation worldwide.

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Encyclopedia

The Bild (formerly Bild-Zeitung, lit. Picture Newspaper) is a German

Germany

Newspaper

Axel Springer AG

Tabloid

Broadsheet

Motto

A motto is a phrase meant to formally describe the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used....
, prominently displayed below the logo, is unabhängig, überparteilich (independent, nonpartisan). Bild's nearest English-language stylistic and journalistic equivalent is often considered to be The Sun

The Sun (newspaper)

The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland with the highest Newspaper circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world and the biggest circulation within the UK, standing at an average of 3,121,000 copies a day between January and June 2008 and with a daily readership of a...
in the UK - the second highest selling European tabloid newspaper - with which it shares a degree of rivalry

History

Bild was founded by Axel Springer

Axel Springer

Axel Springer , was a Germany journalist and the founder and owner of the Axel Springer AG publishing company.Springer was born as Axel C?sar Springer in Hamburg, where his father worked as publisher....
in 1952. It mostly consisted of pictures (therefore the name BILD, German for picture). Bild soon became the best-selling newspaper, by a wide margin, not only in Germany, but in all of Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, though essentially to German readers. Through most of its history, Bild was based in Hamburg

Hamburg

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany , and is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits. The city is home to approximately 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg metropolitan area has more than 4.3 million inhabitants....
. Bild moved its headquarters to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
in March 2008, stating that it was an essential base of operations for a national newspaper. It is printed nationwide with 32 localized editions. Special editions are printed in some favoured German holiday destinations abroad, in Spain

Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
.

Although it is still Germany's biggest paper, the circulation of Bild, along with many other papers, has been on the decline in recent years. After selling more than five million copies every day in the 1980s, circulation dropped below the four million mark in 2002 for the first time in almost 30 years. By the end of 2005, the figure dropped to 3.8 million copies. .

Bild was modeled after the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
tabloid Daily Mirror; although its paper size is bigger, this is reflected in its mix of celebrity gossip, crime stories and political analysis. However, its articles are often considerably shorter compared to those in British tabloids, and the whole paper is thinner as well. Bild has been known to use controversial devices like sensational headlines and invented "news" to increase its readership. The policy of having a topless woman on its front page virtually every day has also been criticised by German feminist groups.

From the outset, the editorial drift was unabashedly conservative and nationalist. The GDR

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic was a self-declared socialist state created in the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the East Berlin of Allied Occupation Zones in Germany....
was referred to as the Soviet Occupation Zone

Soviet occupation zone

The Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of eastern Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II. On 7 October 1949, the Soviet occupation zone became the German Democratic Republic ....
(German: Sowjetische Besatzungszone or SBZ). The usage continued well into the 1980s, when Bild began to use the GDR's official name cautiously, putting it in quotation marks. Bild heavily influenced public opinion against the German student movement

German student movement

The German student movement was a protest movement that took place during the late 1960s in Germany. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students....
of the years following 1967, after the assassination attempt on activist Rudi Dutschke

Rudi Dutschke

Rudi Dutschke born Alfred Willi Rudi Dutschke was the most prominent spokesman of the left-wing German student movement of the 1960s. He famously split from those who went on to form the violent Red Army Faction and advocated instead 'a long march through the institutions' of power to create radical change from within government and s...
. A popular catchphrase in left-wing circles sympathetic to student radicalism was "Bild hat mitgeschossen!" (Bild shot at him too). At the height of left-wing terrorism around 1977, Bild took a strong stance that could be said to have contributed to the climate of fear and suspicion.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a physical separation barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic , including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany....
and the end of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
in Europe, Bild's editorial stance seems to have become more centrist. Despite its general support for Germany's conservative parties and especially former chancellor Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian-Democratic Union of Germany from 1973 to 1998....
. Its rhetoric, still populist in tone, is less fierce than it was thirty years ago. Its traditionally less conservative Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag even supported Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Schröder

is a Germany politics, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Alliance 90/The Greens....
, a Social Democrat

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is Germany's oldest political party. After World War II, under the leadership of Kurt Schumacher, the SPD reestablished itself as an ideological party, representing the interests of the working class and the trade unions....
, in his bid for chancellor in 1998.

Print Locations

Bild is printed in Ahrensburg

Ahrensburg

Ahrensburg is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, situated in Stormarn. Population around 30,100 ....
, Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover#Definitions , on the river Leine, is the capital city of the Federal states of Germany of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the House of Hanover, in their dignities as the dukes of Brunswick-L?neburg ....
, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
, Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig is, with a population of over 511,252, the largest city in the States of Germany of Saxony, Germany....
, Essen

Essen

Essen is a city in the center of the Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Located on the Ruhr River, its population of approximately 579,000 makes it the 7th- or 8th-largest-city in Germany....
, Neu-Isenburg

Neu-Isenburg

The ?Huguenot Town? of Neu-Isenburg with its outlying centres of Gravenbruch and Zeppelinheim is found in the Offenbach in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, right near Frankfurt....
, Esslingen, Munich

Munich

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Munich is located on the River Isar north of the Northern Limestone Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg....
and Syke

Syke

Syke is a town in the Diepholz , Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 20 km south of Bremen .it is also short for the mc lyrical syker, a British Bangladeshi mc....
. Foreign locations exist in Spain

Spain

Madrid

Madrid is the Capital and largest city of Spain. It is the Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its Madrid metropolitan area is the Largest urban areas of the European Union in the European Union after Paris aire urbaine, Greater London Urban Area, a...
, Palma de Mallorca

Palma de Mallorca

Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the Autonomous communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands in Spain....
and Las Palmas. In Italy

Italy

Milan

Milan is the second largest city of Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the Regions of Italy capital of Lombardy....
, in Greece

Greece

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and in Antalya

Antalya

Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean Sea coast of southwestern Turkey. It is the capital city of Antalya Province Provinces of Turkey. The population of the city was 775,157 in the 2007 census....
, Turkey

Turkey

Editors-in-Chief

1952: Rolf von Bargen
1952–1958: Rudolf Michael
1958–1960: Oskar Bezold
1960–1962: Karl-Heinz Hagen
1961–1971: Peter Boenisch
1971–1980: Günter Prinz
1981–1988: Horst Fust
1988–1989: Werner Rudi
1989–1990: Peter Bartels
1990–1992: Hans-Hermann Tiedje
1992–1997: Claus Larass
1998–2000: Udo Röbel
2001-present: Kai Diekmann

Criticism

Bild's high circulation is probably caused by a launch for sensationalism, resulting even in terrorizing celebrities (such as TV presenter Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Elisabeth Grace Roche is a German people television presenter, actress, singer and author....
) and stories frequently based on the most dubious evidence. The journalistic standards of Bild, or the lack thereof, are the subject to frequent criticism by German intellectuals and media observers.

BILDblog (), a German weblog dedicated solely to documenting errors and fabrications in Bild articles, is among Germany's most popular blogs. In 2005, BILDblog received the Grimme Online Award for its work.

Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Böll

Heinrich Theodor B?ll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. B?ll was awarded the Georg B?chner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972....
's 1974 novel The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, and the 1975 movie
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (film)

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is a 1975 film adaptation by Volker Schl?ndorff and Margarethe von Trotta of the The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich B?ll....
based on it, used a fictional stand-in for the Bild to make a point about its allegedly unethical journalistic practices. Böll's public words on the Bild's coverage of the Baader-Meinhof Gang activities in the early 1970s were: [what Bild does] isn’t cryptofascist anymore, not fascistoid, but naked fascism, agitation, lies and dirt.

In 1977 investigative journalist Günther Wallraff worked for four months as an editor for BILD newspaper in Hanover
Hanover

Hanover or Hannover#Definitions , on the river Leine, is the capital city of the Federal states of Germany of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the House of Hanover, in their dignities as the dukes of Brunswick-L?neburg ....
, giving himself the alias
Pseudonym

A pseudonym, , is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name. In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because it is part of a cultural or organizational tradition, as in the case of Religious names used by members of some religious orders and "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin....
of "Hans Esser". In his books Der Aufmacher (Lead Story) and Zeugen der Anklage (Witnesses for the Prosecution) he portrays his experiences on the editorial staff of the paper and the journalism which he encountered there. The staff commonly displayed contempt for humanity, a lack of respect for the privacy of ordinary people and widespread conduct of unethical research and editing techniques.

In 2004 Bild was publicly reprimanded 12 times by the Deutscher Presserat (German Press Council). This amounts for a third of the reprimands this self-regulation council of the German press declared that year.

Trivia

On the day of the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope
Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and head of state of Vatican City. The current pope is Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected April 19, 2005 in Papal conclave, 2005....
Benedict XVI, Bild ran with the now-famous headline "Wir sind Papst" (We are Pope).

In 2004 Bild started to cooperate with fast-food giant McDonald's
McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 58 million customers daily. McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, French fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts....
to sell the newspaper at its 1000 fast food
Fast food

File:2008-0614-In-N-Out-burgsfries.jpgFast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with low quality preparation and served to the customer in a packaged form for Tak...
restaurants in Germany. In 2008, the cooperation still goes on, often enough by advertising the restaurant chain in 'news' articles.

Pretty girls in skimpy clothes - called Page Three girl
Page Three girl

Page Three is a feature found in the United Kingdom tabloid newspaper The Sun , consisting of a topless or even nude photograph of a female glamour model published on the newspaper's third page....
s in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
- appear on Bild's page one below the fold as "Seite-eins-Mädchen" (Page One Girls).

External links

, the paper's website in german and with
, a Bild watchblog
WatchBlog

WatchBlog is a multi-writer weblog divided into three political columns, each with its own blog: Democrats & Liberals, Third Party & Independents, and Republicans & Conservatives....

Bild-Zeitung

History

Print Locations

Editors-in-Chief

Criticism

Trivia

See also

External links