DPA’s classic news in a modern world

dpa_newsroom_politik3by Connor Mulvaney

Chief photographer of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur Michael Kappeler believes taking one good photograph is all you need to market news photos.

“Before in the print world, we tried [to get] one good photo which tells the whole story, but now that’s changing,” said Kappeler.

Today in the digital world, photographers are able to tell stories in countless photographs. However, this is not how DPA conducts its business.

“Print is still important,” said Kappeler.

A surprising statement from a modern newsperson, but in his opinion, it’s a justifiable one.

“It’s the moneymaker for us because we cannot earn money in the digital world,” said Kappeler.  “So we make money with the print clients and so we have to satisfy them.”

Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, founded in 1949 in Germany and based in Hamburg, has grown to be a major worldwide operation serving print media, radio, television, online, mobile phones, and national news agencies. News is available in GermanEnglishSpanish and Arabic. The English service is produced in Berlin, which is also the location of the central news office. The DPA has offices in 80 countries, 12 regional German bureaus along with 50 additional offices in Germany. Point Park students and faculty visited the Berlin office and also heard from Christian Rowenkamp, head of corporate communication, on DPA operations.

In particular, DPA aims to please clients with its “classic” news photographs.  That is, one photo that shows the action and emotion of a situation, and tells the story with one exposure of the camera sensor. Kapperler said the agency has 100 photographers in Germany alone to accomplish that compared to the eight the Associated Press has in all of Germany.

By using the word “client,” Kappeler is of course referring to media outlets.  Not the public.  This in opposition to its  American counterpart, AP, who caters to its  news partners but also permits some public access to its website, stories and photographs. .

“We are only providing news to business clients,” said Kappeler.  “They can use these pictures or information to bring to their clients because we have no way to earn money back [from non-business clients].  So they can [sell] news to their clients, so they can buy the news.”

The DPA’s international reach and commitment to its German clients make it vital to reporting German news.  Its client list proves it. Nearly 100 percent of German media outlets are partners of DPA, according to Kappeler.

“For…the Olympics, or the pope’s election… we send our own DPA photographers to countries where these things happen,” said Kappeler.  These photographers have two jobs – “They do general news, but they also follow the German interest.”

dpa_web_02A hard concept to understand for Americans, as the United States is often at the center of attention when it is involved in global affairs.  For smaller countries like Germany, an extra effort is required to report international news.

“If something happens, there is not always a German interest [reported by other outlets],” said Kappeler.  “The best example is the Olympics.  If a German sports team reaches fourth place, nobody will take a picture of them because [reporters] just follow the medal winners.”

One DPA German photograph of interest worldwide was the recent one that Kappeler himself took – of outgoing Pope Benedict’s hand with the papal ring about to be destroyed per Catholic Church regulations.  He said he took a chance on that photograph, but it was used in countless publications.

Thus, DPA’s commitment to its clients leads them to exactly what they need.

“It’s our task, then, just to follow the German interest because there is a huge media market in Germany, so we have a lot of clients and they want to know what the Germans are doing.”

An Overview of Süddeutsche Zeitung

Suddeutsche Zeitung features a broadsheet layout.  (photo by Carson Allwes)

Suddeutsche Zeitung features a broadsheet layout.
(photo by Carson Allwes)

by Carson Allwes

Point Park International Media class’ final media visit was to Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest quality newspapers in Germany.

Süddeutsche Zeitung was the first free national paper in Germany. It reaches about one and half million people and is a Monday to Saturday paper. It depends partly on subscribers and single copies; about 84 percent of total sales come from this. One subscriber pays about 51.60 euro per month.

Having this revenue helps it not accept any government funds, which is true for some other German media. “There is no political pressure…no pressure from the government what to write,” said Michael Stengl, the product manager of advertisements.

Stengl started with a video of what a day is like at Süddeutsche Zeitung. Stengl translated the video and introduced the group to the newspaper company.

A day at Süddeutsche Zeitung starts at 4 in morning and the paper starts printing at 6 o’clock in the evening. There are usually three editions of the paper before the final copy.

“There are a few similarities between The New York Times and Süddeutsche Zeitung,” Stengl said.

There are regionals papers, free advertising papers, business information and specialized medicial and technology papers under the Süddeutsche Zeitung brand. The national edition of Süddetusche Zeitung, often abbreviated simply as “SZ,” contains four feature sections in economy, culture, sports, and politics. Issues printed for Munich and its closest municipalities will normally contain a local news insert.

Süddeutsche Zeitung has published an eight-page insert of The New York Times articles since 2004; this is known as The New York Times International Weekly and it is in English.

Suddeutsche Zeitung's first issue was published in 1975. (photo by Carson Allwes)

Suddeutsche Zeitung’s first issue was published in 1975.
(photo by Carson Allwes)

In 2000, advertising problems became a concern for the company. Süddeutsche Zeitung Library was created to response to provide revenue, which is a book group that has 50 works in the collection. Consumer can either buy the complete set or the individual book. The library venture was a huge success, Stengl said.

Süddeutsche Zeitung sold 80,000 complete sets and 12 million books total. Now, the company is expanding its medium to CDs and DVDs.

Süddeutsche Zeitung was located in Marienplatz for about six decades until the economy collapsed, Stengl said, and it resulted in a major staff reduction and need for a new direction to survive. A new building was constructed on the outskirts of Munich in 2007, and at the time was the most advanced and ecofriendly building in Germany.

Süddeutsche Zeitung is a unique newspaper because it has its own major production process plant, Stengl said, which is home to a state-of-the-art printing press. It is in charge of printing and packaging enough papers to supply SZ’s massive circulation as well as single copies. Along with Süddeutsche Zeitung’s own audience to satisfy, there are 13 other newspapers in Munich printed at SZ’s plant that exist outside of Süddeutsche Zeitung brand.

Stengl emphasized the quality of the paper and the need to be innovative to keep subscribers and to attract new readers.

“We focus on the quality of the paper,” Stengl said. “[And] on the quality of our products.”

He also said the editor in chief wants to be sure “not to bore” the professor or businessman but also to “educate the common people.”

Several other staff members and editors addressed the group, journalist Viola Schenz and Barbara Vorsamer, subchief editor. They reviewed the online process and the journalistic process the newspaper follows.

Vorsamer noted that the paper’s has “one of the most-read and unique news sites in Germany.” She said, “We were not the first, but we have one the most highly regarded sites in Germany.”

The staff posts all of what’s in the print edition, but some content is exclusively online. The newspaper uses real-time tracking for the site, and she noted that the peak time is noon to 1 p.m., or lunchtime.

Both Vorsamer and Schenz stressed that he most important issue for Süddeutsche Zeitung was the quality of its paper to reflect the brand of all its products for the masses. The paper has worked tirelessly to deliver the best news possible to their subscribers and have been rewarded immensely for their efforts, they said. Their innovation in printing, quality journalism, business and advertising have earned them significant recognition and accolades.

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.”

Advertising and the presses at Süddeutsche Zeitung

Printing Presses at Süddeutsche Zeitung

Printing presses at Süddeutsche Zeitung
(photo by Alexa Blanchard)

by Alexa Blanchard

In the world of advertising, he who generates the most profit is king. But for Süddeutsche Zeitung, a quality national newspaper located in southern Germany, innovation is the key to success.

Generating revenue through ad space is extremely important for a print newspaper, as the only other source for money-making relies on subscriptions. But with the universal decline in print, how do papers like Süddeutsche Zeitung keep their advertisers buying space? How do they keep their readers coming back for more?

Michael  Stengl, the product manager of advertisements, was eager to showcase Süddeutsche Zeitung’s unique advertising methods to Point Park University’s International Media class. The group of Pittsburgh students was comprised of communications majors of all varieties, including advertising and journalism majors. For most, this exclusive inside look at the functionality of a newspaper and their advertisements is especially relevant.

BMW, or Bavarian Motor Works, purchases a lot of ad space from Süddeutsche Zeitung. Stengl demonstrated some of the work that has put together to show of BMW’s luxury vehicles.

“We wondered, ‘how can we reach our audience with bigger, poster-sized images?’” Stengl inquired, citing the effectiveness of large billboard images that are exposed to the public.

He ended his rhetorical question by turning a page in his demonstration newspaper and revealing a true poster-sized image of a new BMW model, an ad that spanned across two newspaper pages. It was truly larger than life, compared to the commonplace ads that typically take up one quarter of a page to one half to a full page at most. Two entire pages for one ad are brilliant and unheard of in most U.S. newspapers except for the largest, such as The New York Times.

Alexa Blanchard and Johnie Freiwald check out a special advertisement in the pages of Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung. (Helen Fallon photograph)

Alexa Blanchard and Johnie Freiwald check out a special advertisement in the pages of Munich’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
(photo by Helen Fallon)

Stengl passed around several other innovative advertising techniques that Süddeutsche Zeitung has employed, including a scented ad and a multi-sensory ad.

“We published this [multi-sensory] ad for BMW and our competitors called us and said ‘What have you done? This is brililiant,’” Stengl added.

The multi-sensory ad in question details driving a BMW from a chauffer’s perspective. The open road ahead is glossed with UV detailing, and the dashboard of the car actually feels like how a real dashboard would. Readers can touch the steering wheel and feel the texture of leather underneath their fingers, and the sleeves of the chauffer are outlined with cloth. This ad is multi-sensory because readers use not only their eyes, but also their sense of touch. Perhaps they even have a smell.

It encourages the reader to stop and take a moment to interact with an advertisement, something that had never been done before. More than anything, it makes the reader remember. Many will never forget that this two-page spread with a tangible leather steering wheel was an ad for BMW, and that they saw it – felt it – in Süddeutsche Zeitung. This is the kind of interactivity, innovation and notoriety that the paper is going for, Stengl said.

Presses at Süddeutsche Zeitung

Presses at Süddeutsche Zeitung
(photo by Alexa Blanchard)

Still reeling from the never-before-seen advertising, the Point Park students were then treated to yet another inside look across the street at Süddeutsche Zeitung’s printing presses. The printing process, which begins at 6 o’clock each evening, is a mammoth undertaking with an innumerable amount of moving parts, employees and equipment working around the clock to get the job right and ready for delivery.

The presses, spanning multiples floors and reaching far and wide, print the broadsheet newspaper at breakneck speed and push their respective paper sections onto conveyor belts where they are mechanically assembled and frequently checked for color. If the color, layout, or printing angle is incorrect then those batches of papers will be trashed and the process corrected. Advertising inserts – a huge source of revenue for the paper – are automatically inserted. The presses are so automated that mailers and inserters are no longer employed, and a small staff of printers is needed, which saves the company money.

All of this must be done in a matter of hours to satisfy the demand of the paper, which has one of the highest circulations in Germany with over 1.1 million daily readers, not including its international demand. The presses generate about 36,000 papers per hour, according to Stengl, and run all night until pickup in the morning.

All of this combined for what Stengl sees as a bright future for Süddeutsche Zeitung, which experienced extreme financial difficulty in the economic fallout in 2007-2008 and placed it on the brink of bankruptcy. Printing a quality newspaper and publishing books and other projects have set the paper on a sound financial course, as well as reaching out with new technological ventures.

And the paper remembers its near collapse as it moves forward. “Print has a future,” Stengl said. “But it must be interesting [to current and future readers].”

Alexa’s Blog – Day 11

The following events transpired on 5/22/13.

Sadly, today is our last day in Munich. We depart bright and early tomorrow morning for the airport to go back to Pittsburgh.

But, just because it was our last day doesn’t mean it wasn’t busy. We started off by heading to Ketchum Pleon, an ad agency, for the morning and listening to an overview on Ketchum and their work. I had never been to an advertising agency before so I wasn’t really sure how one would operate, though I had an idea of what it was like. It must be so empowering to have a huge number of talented, created minds housed together under one company like that. They had some very funny content that I could appreciate as well as a lot of work that was extremely compelling.

After visiting Ketchum, we came back to the hotel for a bit to grab lunch and a quick nap before boarding the train yet again to visit Suddeutsche Zeitung, a southern German newspaper. I feel like we spend most of our time on public transportation!

Suddeutsche Zeitung already had expectations to live up to after we heard how much they compete with Axel Springer for awards and honors. They talked to us about their history as well as the transition from print to online. The showed us some of their ads, which were so interesting and creative. There was one tactic they used called multi-sensory ads in which some elements of the ad are UV coated or have a certain texture that feels like something else. For instance, the multi-sensory ad they showed us was form BMW and showed the front of the car and the road ahead from the driver’s perspective. The dashboard of the car and the driver’s coat all had textures reminiscent of the real deal.

The ads they showed us we so engaging and expensive, but that’s how they make their money, other than subscriptions. After showing some other examples of creative advertising, we walked across the street (it was freezing today!) and took a tour of their printing presses. I had never seen anything like that before! Everything is so intricate and complex. How do things not crash and burn here? The process is so streamlined and monitored. I was impressed and mind-boggled by the process that it takes to produce all of these papers for one day. They said that these presses produce 35,000 papers per hour, but they have to keep up with the ridiculous circulation. I couldn’t believe how massive and amazing this place was.

We arrived ravenous for dinner at the Ratskeller in Marienplatz after our very packed day. We devoured our food, sang happy birthday to Johnie, and presented cards to Helen and Arnoud for all of their hard work for us. Now, it is time to pack and get ready for our long journey home tomorrow. Auf Weidersehen, Muchen!