Frankfurter Rundschau

Frankfurter Rundschau
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Zeitungsholding Hessen (90%)
Karl-Gerold-Stiftung (10%)
EditorThomas Kaspar
Founded1 August 1945; 79 years ago (1945-08-01)
Political alignmentCentre-left
Social liberalism,
Social democracy
Languagede
HeadquartersFrankfurt, Germany
ISSN0940-6980
Websitewww.fr.de
The new Rundschau-House

The Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The Rundschau's editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-war Germany Frankfurter Rundschau was for decades a leading force of German press. The newspaper was one of the first licencened by the US military administration in 1945 and had a traditional social democratic, antifascist and trade union stand.

Starting with the decline of printed daily newspapers in the 2000s, the FR changed ownership several times, reduced its editorial team dramatically and today has little national significance.[1] Frankfurter Rundschau Druck and Verlagshaus GmbH filed for bankruptcy on 12 November 2012.[2][3] Then the paper was acquired by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Frankfurter Societät (publisher of the Frankfurter Neue Presse) in 2013, by taking over just 28 full-time journalists.[4] The FR editorial board continued to be bound by the legacy of Karl Gerold and the commitment to a "left-liberal" political line, and was integrated in the national and international editorial and correspondents network of the DuMont Mediengruppe, the former majority owners. The private foundation managing Karl Gerold's legacy still owns 10% of the shares. But all commercial activity of the paper, printing, selling advertisement and distribution was put in the hands of the Frankfurter Societät. The FR printing enterprise was closed. The contracts for printing BILD-Zeitung and other papers went from the FR's printshop to the FAZ's Societätsdruckerei.

On 1 April 2018, the Frankfurter Societät's ninety per-cent share was sold to Zeitungsholding Hessen, an investment vehicle of the publisher Dirk Ippen. In October 2021, Ippen blocked the publication by the Franfurter Rundschau of an investigative report on accusations of abuse of power made against former Bild editor, Julian Reichelt.

  1. ^ Reisin, Andrej (10 December 2023). "Ippen-Verlag kündigt der "Frankfurter Rundschau" die Zukunft". Übermedien (in German). Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  2. ^ Shannon Smith (29 November 2012). "In Germany, the price of journalism". ZD Net. Berlin. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  3. ^ Alison Langley (12 December 2012). "Europe's newspapers are dying too". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
  4. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine rescues left-leaning rival newspaper Reuters. 28 February 2013.