History
Die Tageszeitung was established in 1978.[9] From the beginning, Die Tageszeitung was intended to be an alternative to the mainstream press, in its own words: "irreverent, commercially independent, intelligent and entertaining." One expression of its alternative approach to journalism was the payment of unified salaries for all employees until 1991. Nowadays, employees in highly responsible positions receive bonuses. Still, salaries of managers paid by Die Tageszeitung are considerably lower than what is paid in the rest of the industry.[10]
Since 1995, the WOZ Die Wochenzeitung (formerly WoZ) and Die Tageszeitung have included a German-language edition of the monthly Le Monde diplomatique to supplement the newspapers.[11][12] Most of the articles in the monthly supplement are translations of the French-language edition of the Le Monde diplomatique.[12] When it existed, taz also added the Turkish language newspaper of Germany Perşembe.[13]
Since 1992, Die Tageszeitung has been owned by more than 22,214 paying members (as of August 2022).[14] Its circulation has dropped in recent years, with subscriptions including e-paper now down to 42,000.[15] In 1995, it was the first German national newspaper to make all of the content of issue available online. Die Tageszeitung considers to phase out its printed daily edition,[16] but has not (as of December 2023). From the beginning, Die Tageszeitung appeared in a nationwide edition as well as in a Berlin local edition. Over the years, local editorial offices for North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Hamburg and Bremen were added. While the latter two were merged to "taz nord" (North) the NRW offices were closed as of July 2007.
In the 2013 elections the magazine was among the supporters of the Social Democratic Party.[18] Taz was the first and only newspaper to have an independent Turkish-language edition online, known as taz.gazete between 2017 and 2020.[19][20] It also was amongst the first to have articles in simple German for neuro-diverse people.[21] It publishes from time to time in English as taz in English.
At the general meeting of the taz publishing cooperative in 2024, the management announced that the daily newspaper will publish its last paper print on 17 October 2025. After that it will only appear online; the columnistic weekend edition will remain in print.[8]
