It’s not unusual for a newspaper to cover the Alabama Crimson Tide. For one of those papers to have also written about Mozart, might be.
One of the world’s oldest newspapers, the Vienna-based Wiener Zeitung, ended its daily print run on July 2nd after more than three centuries. This paper covered the 2017 College Football Playoff championship game in Tampa where Alabama played Clemson.
The Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian newspaper also noted how Wiener Zeitung covered a 1768 concert by an “especially talented” 12-year-old named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
First published under the name Wiennerisches Diarium, the paper set out to provide a sober account of the news “without any oratory or poetic gloss” when it was launched on Aug. 8, 1703.
“320 years, 12 presidents, 10 emperors, 2 republics, 1 newspaper,” the print edition’s final front page read.
The Wiener Zeitung, which is owned by the Austrian government but editorially independent, suffered a sharp decrease in revenue after a recent law dropped a requirement for companies to pay to publish changes to the commercial registry in the print edition.
The newspaper, which is considered a quality publication with a wide range of articles covering domestic and foreign news, culture and business, was forced to cut 63 jobs and reduce its editorial staff by almost two-thirds to 20.
Wiener Zeitung journalist Moritz Ablinger sat next to Alabama Public Radio in the press stands of Raymond James Stadium as the Crimson Tide lost to Clemson during the 2017 college football championship. In Wiener Zeitung, Ablingner wrote this of the game in his article titled “A title for eternity,” (this excerpt, in German, is translated into English through Google Translate…)
“Because college football is much more than a training facility for the NFL. Week after week, not only active students come to the stadiums, but also those who have long since graduated from university. The University of Alabama's Bryant Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa can seat more than 101,000 people and sells out at virtually every home game. The Tigers from Clemson in South Carolina have almost 85,000. With these numbers, Alabama would lead the NFL by a wide margin, with Clemson coming in second. "The size is overwhelming," says (Clemson Coach Dabo) Swinney. "But it's the loyalty that makes our sport so special. Thousands of alumni from both universities are already hanging out in Tampa the weekend before the game.”
The Wiener Zeitung newspaper, which is considered a quality publication with a wide range of articles covering domestic and foreign news, culture and business, was forced to cut 63 jobs and reduce its editorial staff by almost two-thirds to 20.
It will continue to operate online and plans a monthly print edition.
In its final daily print edition the paper interviewed one of Austria’s most famous exports: actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. It lamented that, unlike Schwarzenegger’s famous “Terminator” character, the newspaper won’t be able to make the phrase “I’ll be back” its motto for the future.
