About Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch

Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch is the regional daily newspaper of the northern Wesermarsch in Lower Saxony, published in Nordenham by the Verlag Wilhelm Böning. Founded in 1876 as the Butjadinger Zeitung and appearing Monday to Saturday in the Rhenish format with a sold circulation of 3,082 copies, it is one of the smallest dailies in Germany, but its history reaches back 150 years on the Lower Weser. Part of the Nordsee-Zeitung publishing group, the paper takes its national pages from the Redaktionsgemeinschaft Nordsee in Bremerhaven while producing its local pages in Nordenham. Its publishing house sits in the listed residential and commercial building at Bahnhofstraße 36, built around 1860.

Overview

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch appears Monday to Saturday as the regional daily for the northern Wesermarsch, the marshland district on the Lower Weser's left bank. Its sold circulation stands at 3,082 copies, a decline of 60.6 percent since 1998, in the long retreat of the German regional press's smallest titles. The distribution area covers essentially the municipalities of Butjadingen, Nordenham and Stadland, where the paper competes with the Nordwest-Zeitung of Oldenburg. The paper is printed in the Druckzentrum Nordsee in Bremerhaven, the printing centre of the Nordsee-Zeitung group.

The readership of the Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch is the population of the northern Wesermarsch: the citizens of the port and industrial town of Nordenham, the farmers of the Butjadingen peninsula, the commuters who work in Bremerhaven across the Weser, and the engaged citizens of the municipalities' councils, clubs and churches. The region's identity is shaped by the Weser river, by the marshland and the dikes, by the seaside resorts of the Butjadingen coast, and by the industrial port of Nordenham. The paper's local pages are the medium in which this marshland region's public life is conducted.

History

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch was founded in 1876 as the Butjadinger Zeitung, an entertainment and advertising paper for the offices of Stollham and Ovelgönne, and it appeared with changing titles and subtitles until May 1945. In 1949 the Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch was founded under the full title Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch. Butjadinger Zeitung. Der Weserbote. Oldenburg. Unterweserzeitung, and various local news organs have since merged into it; the Oldenburgische Unterweserzeitung, the Butjadinger Zeitung and the Weser-Bote are still mentioned in the masthead of the title page. The publishing house, the Verlag Wilhelm Böning, has its seat in the listed building at Bahnhofstraße 36 in Nordenham, built around 1860.

The paper's modern history is defined by its integration into the Nordsee-Zeitung publishing group of Bremerhaven, the Ditzen-Blanke family's media house that dominates the region's press market. The national pages come from the Redaktionsgemeinschaft Nordsee, the Bremerhaven editorial community that produces the mantle pages for six other local papers of the Elbe-Weser triangle: the Bremervörder Zeitung, the Cuxhavener Nachrichten, the Niederelbe-Zeitung, the Stader Tageblatt and the Zevener Zeitung, alongside the Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch. The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch and the Zevener Zeitung are daughter or sister papers of the Nordsee-Zeitung, produced as Kopfblätter in the Druckzentrum Nordsee. The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch continues as the daily of the northern Wesermarsch, its 1876 founding making it one of the oldest papers on the Lower Weser.

Coverage and Content

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch covers the public life of the northern Wesermarsch with the thoroughness of a dedicated regional daily. The town council of Nordenham and the municipal councils of Butjadingen and Stadland form a core beat, as does the Wesermarsch district administration in Brake. The paper reports on the port and industrial economy of Nordenham, on the seaside tourism of the Butjadingen coast, on agriculture in the marshland, on the Weser tunnel and the transport connections to Bremerhaven and Oldenburg, and on the dikes and coastal protection. The courts, the police and the emergency services are covered as a matter of course.

A distinctive theme of the paper's reporting is the marshland's relationship with the water: the storm surges, the dike associations, the Weser's shipping and the ferries to Bremerhaven, and the Wadden Sea's ecology. 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 and traditional festivals of the marshland towns. The national and international news comes from the Redaktionsgemeinschaft Nordsee in Bremerhaven. Family announcements, event listings and the classified and display advertising complete the daily, making the Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch the marketplace and the noticeboard of the northern Wesermarsch.

The paper's Butjadingen beat gives particular attention to the peninsula's seaside resorts: the beaches, the mudflat hiking and the holiday apartments that shape the summer economy are recurring subjects. The paper covers the Weser tunnel, the fixed link to Bremerhaven, and the debates about the region's transport connections, from the ferries to the coastal road. The marshland's agriculture, the dairy farms behind the dikes, and the wind turbines on the horizon structure the rural reporting. The district's village festivals and the jubilees of the volunteer fire services are documented with the thoroughness of a local daily. Like the other papers of the Redaktionsgemeinschaft Nordsee, the Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch reports on the schools and kindergartens, on the churches and their congregations, and its readers' letters and service pages give the northern Wesermarsch's citizens a direct voice.

Organization and Ownership

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch is published by the Verlag Wilhelm Böning, based in the listed building at Bahnhofstraße 36 in Nordenham, part of the Nordsee-Zeitung publishing group of Bremerhaven. The NZ publishing house and numerous other companies are owned by the Ditzen-Blanke family, which de facto monopolistically dominates the media market of the seaside city of Bremerhaven. The paper's national pages are produced by the Redaktionsgemeinschaft Nordsee, the Bremerhaven editorial community housed in the Nordsee-Zeitung's press house on the Leher Hafenstraße, which serves six other local papers of the Elbe-Weser triangle.

The group's structure, with the shared national section from Bremerhaven and the local papers' own newsrooms from Bremervörde to Zeven, follows the classic Kopfblatt model. The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch and the Zevener Zeitung are produced as Kopfblätter in the Druckzentrum Nordsee, which also prints other newspaper titles in contract printing. Financial details of the privately held publishing house are not publicly disclosed; the paper's economics rest on subscriptions, regional advertising and the digital revenues of the kreiszeitung-wesermarsch.de portal.

Digital Presence

The Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch is present online at kreiszeitung-wesermarsch.de, where the paper's local journalism for Nordenham and the northern Wesermarsch is available digitally. The paper informs its readers from Monday to Saturday about the events in the region and from around the world: local news, background reports, commentaries, sports results, event tips and much more, available at any time and everywhere. The paper is published as an e-paper with its own app, reproducing the printed edition page for page; existing digital subscribers can use their access data in the app, and new readers can order the e-paper on the website.

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 Nordenham, Butjadingen and Stadland, the digital Kreiszeitung Wesermarsch is the online companion to the printed daily: the marshland's news on the phone in the morning, the e-paper on the tablet in the evening, and the kreiszeitung-wesermarsch.de portal as the continuous news service for the northern Wesermarsch between editions.