A Rare opportunity to visit Munich’s Printhouses

Hello! In the past two weeks, I had the opportunity to visit two of Munich’s media institutions – the TZ Merkur Presshouse and the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) Printhouse. Back in Singapore, I have never had the chance to visit such an establishment to learn about how newspapers are printed, hence being able to visit these places during my exchange program was a true honour. Coming to Munich, I noticed within the first few days that there are many newspaper kiosks scattered around the city, something which my home city does not have. This made me wonder more about the newspapers in Munich. It was an awesome experience being able to go behind-the-scenes of these newspapers in Munich, and It was even more awesome that we got to keep these newspapers as a keepsake of our experience here. After visiting the two sites, I managed to gain insight into how traditional media can continue to survive in a digital age and learnt the importance of these printhouses in the media industry.

Let’s kick things off with the TZ Merkur Presshouse. I especially love that the presshouse gave us a chance to customise our own newspaper front page! I will certainly frame this up! The building itself felt pretty modern, but you could sense the weight of its historical legacy with its old-school furnishings. They publish more than 15 channels of content, which highlights how much journalism has had to diversify ever since the digital age. In the past there were gatekeepers of what content gets to be published, but now, Muncher Merkur plays an important role in helping the public make sense of the huge trove of information we are all constantly bombarded with. This really resonates with me as a communications student, especially in this digital age where misinformation and clickbait is rather prevalent. The presshouse offices has big screens that show their live viewership counts on the most popular news, which helps them to know what content readers are reading at the moment, and to publish their content accordingly.

Another thing that I learnt was how competitive the print media scene in Munich actually is. There are five daily newspapers here alone: TZ, Münchner Merkur, Bild, Abendzeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. All of them are fighting for readership to stay afloat in times when online news are more popular than newspapers. It made me reflect on how even traditional media like newspapers are constantly adapting, not just to digital trends, but to audience attention spans.

Speaking of adaptation, the SZ Printhouse was fascinating in a rather different way. This is where Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest newspaper, gets printed. Did you know that after World War II, Süddeutsche Zeitung was the first newspaper to be given a license to operate in Munich? We were given a tour around the production rooms, and it was cool to physically witness the newspapers for the next day being produced. The smells of fresh newspapers in the production rooms were simply magical! The SZ newspaper has a wide range of opinions and sections, which gives their readers the leeway to choose the content they digest, and what their political standpoint would be. One thing I found really interesting was how they have three separate editions – a national newspaper, a Bavarian newspaper, and a sports edition that is released after 11pm. I am a sucker for creative advertising, so it really hyped me up to learn that Süddeutsche Zeitung explored different creative printing methods for their newspapers. My favourite would be their advertisement for BMW which flaunted leather and rubber finishing on their paper to give it a luxurious feel to the touch. They also came up with a way to print a translucent front page. On top of that, the printhouse has adapted to shift towards recycled paper due to rising newsprint costs and for more sustainable prints, revealing how even the production arm of journalism is being affected by inflation and environmental pressures. It was also interesting to find out how the printhouse had to deal with the 9/11 attacks. The printhouse had to adapt very quickly to change the content they are printing to remain sensitive to the tragic event.

Compared to TZ Merkur, I felt that the SZ Printhouse had more of an industrial feel to it, with an emphasis on the production of the newspapers. I find that the SZ Printhouse adapted more to a wide range of audiences, especially by thinking out of the box in producing their newspapers. However, both places felt like they were working towards the same thing, which is to keep the public informed in an age where attention is so fragmented.

Visiting both media institutions really opened my eyes to how traditional media operates in Germany. There’s so much history behind each publication, yet so much change happening right now. As someone passionate about media and storytelling, I am eternally grateful that I managed to see it all up close.

– Shon Tan Tian Ci