Not just a museum!

I found the trip to Süddeutsche Zeitung Printing House really insightful. I had never been to a printing house before, so I was interested to see the how newspapers are produced. I found Michael very knowledgeable about the printing process and the history of Süddeutsche Zeitung. At the start he showed us a video about the writing process of the articles that will be printed in the newspaper, but the movie felt dated and was probably the least enjoyable part of the trip. I enjoyed learning about the process of printing they use now; I had never heard about offset printing, and it was great to see it see this process in action when we went to the factory floor. He spoke very highly of the readers of the newspaper which I did find unusual. I feel most newspapers try to advertise themselves to all types of people to have a wide readership, but they were very quick to say that people who read Süddeutsche Zeitung are highly educated and have a lot of money. While this was a bit unusual it is good that they know their readers and it was interesting to hear how they advertise to their readers. I think we were all shocked about the price of the subscription service, where you get the newspaper delivered to your house every day, which cost around €1000. Considering the online service is significantly cheaper for a yearly subscription, €129, it makes the print subscription service price look very shocking. I do understand though that people in older generations do read the newspaper every day, so this service is convenient and more cost effective than buying the newspaper in a shop every day but to a person who never buys a newspaper it seems unreasonable. Overall, I feel like the trip was really informative on the process in which new papers are printed, how they advertise to their audience and also was really informative on the history of printing. By far my favourite part was seeing the factory floor with all the newspapers travelling through the printers.

Photo of the factory floor in the Süddeutsche Zeitung Printing House.