German newspapers

I just gave a presentation in my German class over Germany’s newspapers. The presentation was ill-prepared and a little embarrassing, but I recovered nicely by showing everyone nudity and giving away free newspapers.

The nudity came from Germany’s trashiest newspaper, Bild-Zeitung. Translated, the name is Picture-Newspaper. It’s modelled on USA Today but with some nudity thrown in. It’s famous for its Seite-eins-Mädchen (Page one young ladies), who are usually bare-breasted.

This is not just a trashy tabloid. Well, it is that, but it’s also Germany’s, and therefore Europe’s, best-selling newspaper. No one respects it, however. It receives about one-third of all reprimands issued by Germany’s independent press watchdog group.

There are some high-quality newspapers here, too–or so I’m told. Although I can make out some headlines and a few sentences, most newspapers here are beyond my vocabulary range. I’ve made a few attempts at Die Zeit, a respected weekly newspaper, but it’s tough-going.

As I’ve written before, nudity in newspapers is much more acceptable here than in the US. Die Bild-Zeitung is not sold under the counter, but out in the open with all the legitimate papers. As a side note: I suspect that if it wasn’t so regulated in the America, USA Today would slip in some nudity really quick.

And serious papers here don’t hesitate to use artsy nudity on their front page either. We Americans were stunned a few weeks back at an airport bookstore when we saw the new Die Zeit. The issue’s theme was “Was ist Männlich?” which means “What is Manly?” And so what kind of picture do you think they ran over the whole front page? Well, they were so proud of it that they put it up as a billboard, too. (Click here to see the picture).

The only comparable shock I got from a US publication recently was in The New Yorker a few months back. It ran a review of a book on Playboy magazine (link–no pictures) which blithely included a full-color page of centerfold pictures from 1953 onward. That was a little awkward to read on the bus. It always makes me smile when I find borderline smut in unassailably high-brow publications.

At the same time, some newspapers here are still doing the austere (and pretentious in my opinion) no-pictures-on-the-cover thing. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s most respected newspaper, is like this.

Another side note: Mary Ann has called my interest in newspapers old-man-like. Amanda has called me an old man on several occasions. Are they right? Well, I am grumpy when I don’t get my midday nap.