The Axel Springer empire

Axel Springer exterior

Axel Springer took a chance by building the headquarters in Berlin.
(photo by Marina Weis)

by Marina Weis

Everyone thought journalist Axel Springer was crazy when he built his publishing house on the west side of Berlin during World War II.

A few days later, the Berlin wall was built right beside it.

But Springer had faith that Germany would be reunited and his headquarters would be in the center of a unified Germany. He believed his company had to pursue something called corporate social responsibility, with his fellow journalists fighting for a free social market. He called the headquarters that towered over the wall the lighthouse of freedom.

Although the Berlin Wall no longer stands near the headquarters today, the company still towers as the leading publishing house in the country, owning more than 230 newspapers and magazines with more than 80 online offerings, as well as involvement in television and radio stations and activity in 44 countries, according to its website. Its tabloid, Bild, has the highest circulation among Europe’s newspapers with more than 12 million people reading it daily.

Axel Springer, the journalist, may be gone, but current leaders of the company say his entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and integrity are carried through in every aspect of the company, even in the contracts of each journalist.

“Everything that he said came true and is still valuable today,” said Leeor Englander, assistant to the editor-in-chief of Die Welt, a large national newspaper owned by Axel Springer. “They were fighting against communism before and now it is terror today.”

Because Springer focused not only on content, but also on distribution and production, stemming from his family’s background in the newspaper business, he built the first print houses in Germany, and Axel Springer AG therefore began to print other newspapers, creating joint ventures, which began the expansion.

Leeor Englander greets the Point Park students and faculty.  (photo by Johnie Freiwald)

Leeor Englander greets the Point Park students and faculty.
(photo by Johnie Freiwald)

“At the time when Axel Springer invented Bild Zeitung, it was comparable with Facebook,” Englander said. “He did something nobody ever did before … The way he invented new magazines was the same way people today invent new apps and websites.”

In the same way that Springer fostered technological innovations, the company now strives to be the leading digital media company in Germany. Axel Springer AG currently generates more than a third of its revenue from its international business and with digital media.

Englander boasts of Die Welt as the first newspaper to have color, pictures, a compact version, a mobile application and to be the first real German national newspaper to go online.

“Journalism has nothing to do with paper,” Englander said. “It’s how do we reach our readers. We are not trying to keep print alive – We are trying to keep it as long as we can.”

Subscription only covers half the production cost of Die Welt. Advertising and classifieds cover the rest. Years ago, the reader paid almost all of it.

Despite ranking third among other leading print publications in Germany, Die Welt has taken leaps to further its digital presence, adopting a philosophy of mass-market journalism, which focuses on reaching all target groups with new products. It now sells more digital subscriptions per month than print.

“We knew that people were willing to pay for digital content,” Englander said. “Online is the most important distribution channel for the future.”

The focus was so much so online that Die Welt just last year decided to produce its content for online first, and then, at the end of the day, take the best content that was already online and publish it in print.

For comparison, Englander said Volkswagen builds the same car for both Germany and United States, but it looks only a little bit different because marketing is different in the United States. He said in the same breath, Die Welt produces the same content for its compact version, but it’s just less and shorter.

This repurposing of content in order to reach different readers can be seen Axel Springer’s publications. For example, the science section in the compact version of Die Welt was recently renamed Internet news to attract younger readers.

Axel Springer Academy students explain what they're learning to the Point Park students and faculty.  (photo by Helen Fallon)

Axel Springer Academy students explain what they’re learning to the Point Park students and faculty.
(photo by Helen Fallon)

In order to ease into the switch from old economy print style to a multimedia company, Axel Springer AG created a journalism academy to act as a change agent or think tank, bringing “fresh blood” and a “new mindset” to the company, according to Rudolf Porsche, director  of Axel Springer’s Akademie.

The Akademie started in 2007 and is the most progressive journalism school in Germany, according to Porsche. About 1,000 students apply to the fast and aggressive two-year vocational training at Axel Springer, but only about 40 of them are accepted. The job offers come after completion and some can be rejected. Most have completed an academic degree and prior journalism experience. They are also given a monthly salary of about 1,200 euros. These students are then contracted to work for three years at Die Welt or any other Axel Springer AG affiliates after the Akademie.

Porsche, also a journalist, said Akademie students are given “all they need,” such as Mac books, smart phones and cameras, as well as teachers to tell them how to use the equipment. The last thing they are given is the “freedom to act.”

“We give you the equipment, we teach you the techniques, and you teach us what to do with this,” Porsche said. “That is why we are awarded with prizes because it is not my work. It is the creativity of our students.”

In the past, the Akademie was awarded the Grimme Online Award, the CeBIT AppStar and the European Newspaper Award for projects when it competed with other news organizations in Germany.

“We do not compete with other schools. That’s boring. We competed with other brands,” Porsche said.

The students – this year ranging in age from 18 (which is unusual, Porsche said) to early 30s – are currently working on a relatively secret masterpiece project for the next few weeks that will eventually be published in the Welt Kompact and Welt Online.

“We started with simple things – with news, the basics, but now we are doing TV journalism and multimedia journalism,” said an Akademie student about her experiences at Axel Springer. “I think that’s really important. That will be the future. I think it’s great we learn it here even though it is hard work all the time, and you have to get yourself into all this technical stuff.”

DAY 5: Axel Springer

DAY 5: Axel Springer

It still is very strange for me to swallow the fact that an ocean separates me from my home. I know Munich is going to make me feel even more withdrawn from society. I feel so American here.

I felt this especially when we met the students at the Academy at Axel Springer. We asked them questions, but I was surprised the number of questions they asked us. They asked us about voting in the U.S., which was very eye-opening and also about simple things like smoking stigmas and the timeline of when people go to higher education.

It was such a unique experience to get media perspectives from people our own age. After speaking with some of our group, though, we all felt a little behind as one of the girls who was 18 had already published 3 or 4 books.

The bar/cafe on the 19th floor of Axel Springer.

The bar/cafe on the 19th floor of Axel Springer.

Three wonderful professionals took much of their time to speak to us about an overview of Axel Springer, the Academy, video and Die Welt.

I tried so hard to hang onto every word they were saying as I was covering the day, so at the end I was mentally exhausted. I have so many good quotes and my outlook on newspapers especially has changed dramatically.

As Richelle said, Germans tend to look at the big picture and think strategically. If I tried to mention all of the great points and ideas that were discussed today, this blog post would be thousands of words long. The key point I gathered was that the founder Axel Springer was a man who thought outside of the box, which allowed him to take risks and work his way to the top. Today his work ethic has carried the business to new expansions long after he has passed. With a wealth of money and credibility, Axel Springer can therefore make more risks and have the data to share with us about extremely new developments in media such as applications for iPads. That’s why it was so interesting. You aren’t going to read this in any academic journal just quite yet.

Their methods are so different from ours, especially writing for online and print and video permission guidelines, which gives me a whole new perspective on media at home. All of our media’s flaws stood out like a sore thumb! It was extremely interesting when they spoke about the different audiences all of their publications and the subsets within them. It truly ties all that I have been learning in lectures at school and at conferences together. Now I might be able to throw something I learned out there at a job interview!

I just want to mention that Leeor was a great host. We ended up getting an extra lecture from such a well-spoken man of high rank in Die Welt. He painted a picture of Jewish life from a perspective we probably would have never had, unless we read his column…which is more than likely in German. This goes hand-in-hand with what I said before about becoming a more cultured journalist.

I feel pretty lucky after such an enlightening day. I keep thinking in my head: innovation, innovation, innovation. Even in their slogan is the word “entertainment.” The science section in the compact version? Yeah, it’s called the “Internet” section just so people will want to read it. Journalism is truly morphing and even they didn’t know where it will be in the future. I am just glad to be a part of yet another adventure.

Alexa’s Blog – Day 5

The following events transpired on 5/16/13.

Today’s media visit at Axel Springer was my favorite visit yet. We talked to Rudolf Porsche of Axel Springer and the Akademie students, which was very enlightening. Their work on their ‘masterpiece’ about the low voting turn out is such a great opportunity for them and hugely relevant since Germany has elections coming up. I was impressed by all of the students and that they are taking their education seriously. All of them are so multi-talented and charismatic that it’s hard to remember that some of them are even younger than we are. I loved getting the chance to talk to them. Katie, who is 18, was particularly amazing to all of us because she has already published four books! We had a great time talking to her about the differences between America and Germany after lunch. She found it funny that smoking cigarettes has a negative stigma in America, where in Germany it’s a bit of a romantic thing to be a smoking a cigarette and working on your hard-hitting news story. I loved hearing about the background of the other Akademie students as well – there was even a girl who had spent time in America, and her American accent was flawless. At the end of our visit, a few of the students took a small group of us to the 19th floor where there is a lavish bar and restaurant that overlooks the city of Berlin. It was probably the best view I had seen of the city so far.

While we were at Axel Springer we also talked with the assistant to the editor-in-chief of Die Welt, Leeor Englander. I was responsible for having a surplus of questions ready for him to keep the conversation going, but as it turns out I hardly needed them – he was so interesting and passionate about Die Welt that the words just kept coming. He talked a lot about the extensive innovations that Die Welt was doing to stay ahead of the journalism world and stand out. He showed us their news room, which was small and orderly but stocked with the latest in technology – Mac computers, full Adobe suites, several different models of iPads, smart phones – they seemed like they had everything they could ever need. Leeor also touched on a project he was a part of called Jew in the Box which was about stereotypes of the Jewish people. It was fascinating to hear about his culture and the prejudices he faces every day, and an interesting deviation from the news world that we had been talking about all day.

We had dinner in a small restaurant in Mitte, the center of Berlin. We enjoyed beer and schnitzel and paid Zack to eat an anchovy. The night ended with frantic packing and a short trip to get spaghetti ice cream. I got some for poor Carson, who is still stuck up in the hotel during down time, but it all but melted on by the time I booked it back to the hotel. I wish we could push her around in a wheelchair or a shopping cart.

Overall, this was my absolute favorite day. Everyone at Axel Springer was so engaging and relatable. I am sad to leave Berlin and our wonderful tour guide, Lorena, but I’m so happy that we ended on such a great note. Here’s to adventures in Munich!

-AB