About Kehler Zeitung

Kehler Zeitung

The Kehler Zeitung is the local daily newspaper of Kehl on the Rhine in the Ortenau district of Baden-Württemberg, appearing for the city of Kehl and the right-Rhine Hanauerland. Published in Offenburg by the Reiff Verlag GmbH & Co. KG as a Kopfblatt of the Mittelbadische Presse, the paper serves the cities of Kehl and Rheinau and the municipality of Willstätt with local pages produced for its distribution area. Founded on 8 December 1863 by the publisher August Morstadt, the Kehler Zeitung is one of the oldest dailies on the Upper Rhine, its history intertwined with the border town's position across the river from Strasbourg.

Overview

The Kehler Zeitung appears Monday to Saturday as the Mittelbadische Presse's local edition for Kehl and the Hanauerland. The paper is one of four local editions of the Offenburger Tageblatt, alongside the Acher-Rench Zeitung of Oberkirch, the Lahrer Anzeiger and the main Offenburg edition, all published by the Reiff publishing house. The distribution area covers the cities of Kehl and Rheinau and the municipality of Willstätt, the right-Rhine communities opposite the French city of Strasbourg. The paper is sold mainly by subscription, in the classic pattern of the German regional daily.

The readership of the Kehler Zeitung is the population of the Rhine border town: the citizens of Kehl, a city of some 38,000 inhabitants whose daily life is inseparable from Strasbourg, the employees of the town's steel, paper and caravan industries, the commuters who work across the border in France, and the engaged citizens of the town's councils, clubs and churches. Kehl's identity is shaped by the Rhine, by the French border and by the European institutions in Strasbourg, whose influence reaches into the everyday life of the German town. The paper's local journalism documents this border existence.

History

The Kehler Zeitung was founded on 8 December 1863, when the first edition of the Kehler Grenzbote was printed in the Morstadt Verlag, founded in the same year by August Morstadt. The paper appeared initially three times weekly, later becoming the Kehler Wochenblatt, and on 1 October 1898 it became a daily newspaper. The Morstadt Verlag remained the paper's publisher for more than a century, and Kehl has been the seat of the Morstadt publishing house since 1863.

After the Second World War the Kehler Zeitung did not reappear until 1949. In 1978 the heirs of the deceased Kehl publisher Hermine Morstadt transferred the publishing rights to the Reiff Medien Verlag in Offenburg, integrating the Kehler Zeitung into the Mittelbadische Presse as one of its Kopfblatt editions. The paper celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2013 with a jubilee edition on Baden Online. The Morstadt Verlag continued as a Kehl publishing house beyond the newspaper era. The Kehler Zeitung continues within the Reiff group as the daily of the Rhine border town, its historic title preserved within the Mittelbadische Presse.

Coverage and Content

The Kehler Zeitung covers the public life of Kehl, Rheinau and Willstätt with the thoroughness of a dedicated local edition. The town councils and the municipal administrations form a core beat, as does the Ortenau district administration in Offenburg. The paper reports on the border relationship with Strasbourg, one of the defining themes of the region: the tram line across the Rhine, the cross-border commuters, the European institutions and the everyday German-French coexistence. The town's industries, from the Badische Stahlwerke to the Koehler paper manufacturer and the Bürstner caravan works, are followed as the district's economic backbone.

The paper follows the community life of the area: the volunteer fire services, the sports clubs and their leagues, the churches and their congregations, and the cultural associations of the border town, from the Stadthalle's programme to the traditional events of the Hanauerland villages. The schools, including the Hochschule Kehl, one of Germany's universities of applied sciences for public administration, the police and the emergency services are covered as a matter of course. A recurring subject is the Rhine itself: the river crossings, the floods and the port, the ecology of the Rhine meadows and the tourism along the river. The regional, national and international news comes from the Mittelbadische Presse's newsroom in Offenburg. Family announcements, event listings and the classified and display advertising complete the edition.

The paper's 150th anniversary in 2013 underlined the Kehler Zeitung's exceptional continuity: few German local dailies can trace their history in one town back to 1863. The paper's reporting on the Franco-German everyday life is its signature: the tram line across the Rhine to Strasbourg, the tens of millions of annual border crossings, the bilingual kindergartens and schools, the cross-border shopping and working, and the European institutions whose decisions reach into the German border town. Kehl's history as a fortress town, repeatedly contested and destroyed, gives the paper's local pages a historical depth that few border papers possess. The paper also covers the town's role as a trade-fair and congress location, the development of the former barracks areas and the port, and the Hochschule Kehl's public-administration students who shape the town's youthful quarter. In Kehl the publishing house also produces the advertising papers Stadtanzeiger and Der Guller for the Kehl-Rheinau-Willstätt area, extending the group's reach into every household.

Organization and Ownership

The Kehler Zeitung is published by the Reiff Verlag GmbH & Co. KG of Offenburg, the publishing house of the Mittelbadische Presse, one of the leading regional media houses of the Ortenau. The Reiff group publishes the Offenburger Tageblatt with its local editions, the Acher-Rench Zeitung and the Lahrer Anzeiger, and the group's publishing structure reflects the consolidation of the Ortenau press around the Offenburg publishing house. The paper's local editorial work for the Kehl area is carried out within the group's structure, with the national and regional sections produced in Offenburg.

The Mittelbadische Presse's digital portal bo.de serves all the group's editions, with the Kehl local section at bo.de/lokales/kehl. In Kehl the group also maintains a local editorial office for the Stadtanzeiger publishing house, producing the advertising papers Stadtanzeiger and Der Guller for the Kehl-Rheinau-Willstätt area. Financial details for the individual local editions are not disclosed separately; the group's economics rest on subscriptions, regional advertising and the digital revenues of the Baden Online portal.

Digital Presence

The Kehler Zeitung appears digitally on bo.de, the Baden Online portal of the Mittelbadische Presse, where the paper's local reporting for Kehl and the Hanauerland appears in the dedicated Kehl local section at bo.de/lokales/kehl. The portal carries continuously updated local news from the Rhine border town, photo galleries and multimedia content, extending the daily's reporting to readers on desktop and mobile devices. The group's digital products include the fussball.bo.de football portal, the ortenauer-hochzeiten.de wedding portal, the trauer.bo.de obituary portal and the kleinanzeigen.bo.de classifieds portal, which serve the paper's readers as the digital marketplace of the Ortenau.

The paper is published as an e-paper reproducing the printed edition page for page, serving subscribers who read the daily on tablet or desktop. As a subscription daily, much of the digital content is reserved for registered and paying readers, while selected local stories remain freely accessible. For the readers of Kehl, Rheinau and Willstätt, the digital Kehler Zeitung is the online companion to the printed local edition: the border town's news on the phone in the morning, the e-paper on the tablet in the evening, and the bo.de portal as the continuous news service for the right-Rhine Hanauerland between editions.