The rotary printer on the outskirts of Ingolstadt’s city center is still buzzing. The Colora machine, which weighs tons, still spits out up to 37,500 newspapers per hour – a high-performance machine that prints almost 80,000 copies of the newspaper every night Danube courier gives birth. In times of news apps and live tickers it may seem a bit old-fashioned, but a print shop is still something like the birthplace of the newspaper. In Ingolstadt the cradle of the Danube courier however, will be shut down this year, as the SZ learned from a well-informed source.
In the future, the regional newspaper with its seven local editions will roll off the assembly line in Regensburg: in the printing center of the Central Bavarian newspaper, the like that Danube courier from the publisher Passau New Press was bought. The looming closure is the next step in the dismantling of the Ingolstadt newspaper, which was founded in 1945 and has existed since 2016 is owned by the Passau publisher Simone Tucci-Diekmann – and since then it has been “tattered” more and more, as a long-time editor reports with frustration.
You have to share an editor-in-chief with the “Mittelbayerische”.
Tucci-Diekmann left an SZ inquiry about the closure of the print shop unanswered, and the print shop managers did not respond to attempts to contact them either. The publisher is not known for transparency anyway, although her company has dominated large parts of the Bavarian local newspaper market after numerous acquisitions – and thus has a journalistic responsibility. In an interview shortly after the takeover in 2016, Tucci-Diekmann assured: “The Danube courier will the Danube courier stay.” In the meantime, the article can no longer be found online, which can also be understood as a message.
In the Ingolstadt editorial office, they have long been talking about the “decline” of their newspaper. Since the Passau company came on board, local offices have shrunk, branches have been closed, and secretaries and layouters have been laid off. Young journalists in particular have meanwhile fled the building. The journalistic independence was lost with the merger of important departments, for example in politics, which is being created in Passau. With the Central Bavarian you have to share an editor-in-chief yourself. “It’s a drama,” she says Danube courier-Journalist who wishes to remain anonymous. “We are witnessing the sell-out of what used to be a very good newspaper.” The end of the print shop is another blow for the newspaper, which as the only local newspaper in Ingolstadt has always strongly influenced the public debate.
“Numerous colleagues have looked for new jobs.”
Nobody can currently say exactly what the closure of the print shop means in detail – not even how many employees could be affected by redundancies. About 20 permanent employees and around 50 part-time employees are currently employed in the print shop, according to the company. According to a print shop employee, the workforce has become increasingly thin over the past few months. “Numerous colleagues have looked for new jobs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find replacements.” But operations are still running normally, the rotation is still purring.
But if it is switched off by the end of the year, that will also have consequences for the topicality of the paper, says ein Danube courier-Insider. “If the printing times are shifted forward because of the greater distance, results from late-night soccer games, for example, can no longer get into the newspaper.” The long-time editor fears that the delivery could also suffer. It’s already happening that subscribers don’t receive a newspaper for days and are stuck in the queue when they have complaints – until they cancel their subscription in frustration, as the employee reports. Since the takeover, sales have also been managed centrally from Passau.
In Ingolstadt, they had long feared that the merger with the modern printing center in Regensburg would come at some point. After all, printers, with their energy-intensive machines and the personnel they require, are major cost factors for publishers; since taking over Central Bavarian newspaper the Passau publishing group has three printing houses in the Danube triangle Ingolstadt-Passau-Regensburg – apparently one too many from Passau’s point of view. By selling off Ingolstadt, the publisher saves a lot of money and resources. This is called “synergy effect” in business administration. “I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly,” says the longtime editor, sounding hopeless. “How is this supposed to continue?”
In any case, in Ingolstadt they are already speculating what will happen to the heavy rotary presses when they Danube courier soon no longer be pressed into paper form at top speed. Probably, as someone who knows the house well suspects, the machines will be sold abroad – where they will then give birth to another newspaper far away from Ingolstadt.