Thought v. Facts

Most daily newspapers are interested chiefly in facts. But Switzerland's German-language daily, Neue Zuercher Zeitung (New Zurich Journal), is a rare exception. The paper's editors feel that "a fact in itself doesn't mean anything; it's what you think about the fact that matters." N.Z.Z.'s interpretive stories on the facts have made it the most influential and widely respected daily published on the Continent. Strongly antiCommunist, the paper is also an outspoken friend of the U.S., a proponent of free capitalism, a supporter of German rearmament, and a skeptic about the possibilities of permanent peaceful coexistence. N.Z.Z. is in no hurry to print breaking news, and its tabloid-size format is dull. It prints titles instead of headlines, and its circulation (70,000) is small. Yet it is must reading for such diverse political experts as Pundit Walter Lippmann and Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

One day last week, when the top story all over the world was developments in the Far East (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), N.Z.Z. characteristically handled it in a short wire-service story at the bottom of page two. It covered page one with a leisurely account of the opening of the British Parliament, a long book review of the third volume of Fritz Valjavec's ten-volume Historia Mundi and a discussion of German-Russian relations.

Cold & Deep. N.Z.Z.'s 15 full-time and 20 part-time correspondents (four in the U.S.) make up the biggest foreign staff of any newspaper of its circulation in the world. But they seldom bother with spot news. For example, on June 17, 1953, the paper's Berlin correspondent was on the scene of the first East German Stalinallee riot. Instead of filing an eyewitness story, he sent a long report on the "significance of the violence." The paper, which is published in three editions every day, also assumes that readers remember what news facts it prints from one edition to the next. Thus, after the 1954 U.S. congressional election, the first edition carried a story on the Democratic victory; the second printed an interpretive story from Washington. The third edition carried no story, simply an editorial analyzing the results without spelling them out. Explained one British newsman in Switzerland: "The Swiss don't like their news hot. They like it cold and deep."

N.Z.Z. has been cold and deep ever since it started in 1780. In 1805 the paper reported briefly the defeat of the French fleet at Trafalgar and cautiously added: "In the first moments of such events, one is inclined to exaggerate conditions. It might therefore be better to wait for reports which are written in cold blood and come from safer sources." Such careful news coverage and restraint have earned the paper so much respect that when it does speak out forcefully, N.Z.Z. often gets what it wants, e.g., its insistent campaigning has given the Swiss press as much freedom as any in the world.

Spotless & Frugal. N.Z.Z.'s stocky, pink-cheeked Editor Willy Bretscher, 57, who has worked on the paper for 37 years and been its boss for more than 20, is proudest of his daily's fight against Naziism. When a small band of Swiss Nazis began to sing Hitler's praises.

Editor Bretscher in 1933 dispassionately analyzed the Nazis' destructive aims. N.Z.Z. was finally banned in Germany altogether when it printed an article saying it was common knowledge that the Reichstag fire was started by Goering, not by the Communists. (The German government continued to buy 200 copies of the paper a day for its own information.)

In the paper's handsome, five-story building, where a new $770,000 press was being installed last week, Bretscher presides over a staff of 375 employees. Its spotless composing room is lined with plants that each compositor cares for himself. Swiss frugality is in evidence all over its building. Says a sign on the elevator: "Young persons can well afford to walk up at least two floors." While the paper has 250 Swiss stockholders, it is run virtually as a public trust: no stockholder may hold more than 3% of the stock. The paper's international readership attracts advertisers in English, French and German. But Editor Bretscher has no intention of going for more readers or advertisers by leavening his heavy diet of political analysis with easier-to-read news and features. Says he happily: "I hope we shall always edit a good paper and never cater too much to public tastes."

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