Type Weekly newspaper | Editor-in-chief Susan Boos | |
Owner(s) infolink cooperative, employees of the newspaper Associate editor Stefan Howald, Yves Wegelin Founded 1981 (1981) as WocheneZeitung (WoZ) Political alignment Centre-left, Green socialism | ||
WOZ Die Wochenzeitung, (commonly abbreviated as WOZ or Wochenzeitung), is a Swiss German-language weekly newspaper, published in Zürich (Switzerland).
Contents
History
WochenZeitung (WoZ) was founded on the first of October, 1981. It was based on the experiences of the German Die Tageszeitung (taz) and the monthly student journal Das Konzept. Considered one of the special newspapers in Switzerland, WOZ focused on German-speaking residents as well as non-residents. In the beginning, its staff was paid a unit wage, but since 1984, WoZ was financially supported by Pro WoZ, a booster association. Beginning in 1995, the former WoZ and tax became joint editors of the German-language edition of Le Monde diplomatic as a supplement of the newspaper: its content was influenced by the conjuncture of various current events of the Swiss alternative political movement, in a first phase of the youth movement of the 1980s. The low proportion of advertisements granted a certain independence, but the newspaper was periodically under-funded. A financial reboot in 2003 ended in near bankruptcy due to increased costs, but a reorganization in 2005, which included the change of the whole first editorial board and the decision of not having a chief editor, ultimately allowed for consolidation.
WOZ claims to be the only independent national newspaper in German-speaking Switzerland: it belongs to neither a political party nor association or media company, and guarantees critical, enigmatic, quality journalism. In addition to its thirty editors, it also has a broad network of free journalists. According to the readership study MACH Basic, WOZ reaches 72,000 regular readers with a daily circulation of 15,867 copies (WEMF 2014).
Organization
The highest panel of the WOZ newspaper is the plenum of the cooperative infolink, the WOZ editor. The cooperative belongs to all employees who are employed by at least fifty percent. The cooperative assets, the equity of the WOZ, consists of one-time membership fees of current and former cooperative members. The editorial meeting is responsible for the newspaper's content, and decisions of greater consequence are decided by the plenary of the cooperative members. Many staff officials are also in one or more working groups or commissions within the self-managed company with over fifty employees and an annual turnover of around four million Swiss Francs. WOZ is supported by the ProWOZ society, whose estimated 800 members more than double the subscription amount.