Why the newspaper may no longer be called newspaper

Words are clever. They absorb what their linguistic environment and the era in which they are spoken have in store for them. However, this also makes words problem children - because once they have become saturated with meaning, it is not so easy to make it disappear again. Words reveal through subtle nuances how their speaker feels and thinks inside, they can manipulate and mislead. Words set images free. "Words are deeds," Ludwig Wittgenstein recognized. That is why it is advisable to choose them carefully.

It happens that words in the language use are exchanged ( must ). Because they have become so loaded with context that they no longer work in a new era, remind us of the outdated, the suppressed, or because their coloring reflects a spirit that should be left in the bottle. Today one no longer says Miss, because women define themselves by more than just their marital status. Today you don't say Negro anymore because ( or at least when ) you have understood that people from Africa are not worth less than Europeans or Asians. Today one does not say leader any more, because there was one, who led into the enormous error. Already leader becomes dangerous. And also the word people one takes only carefully in the mouth. Today, one no longer says Natel if one doesn't want to be from the day before yesterday, because Mobile conveys something completely different. The context that words carry with them can be so disturbing in a new linguistic environment that one has to find other terms for what is meant.

What we now call communication suffered a similar fate: Propaganda became advertising, advertising became advertising, and advertising became something with communication. Communication is always good. Not to be confused with marketing! So now it's the newspaper's turn. What do we call the newspaper when it is published in DIN A4 format, is also digital; and a store; and a ticket agency; and a travel agency; and a gift store ...? Reading offer with addition? The word newspaper is no longer big enough for its content.

The Newspaper Association of America, the association of North American newspaper publishers, recently renamed itself the News Media Alliance. By dropping the word Newspaper, officials said they were responding to mass closures of print newsrooms. Oh, it's that simple! What I don't call by its name doesn't exist. Like a child who squints tightly because he'd rather be in the forest than at daycare.

But nonsense or not, the trend is clear: newspaper sounds old-fashioned, from the century before last. When people hear newspaper, they still think of thin paper, rubbing off ink and XXL format, even though there is hardly a newspaper left without a digital version. Newspaper has already become saturated with the context of decline we keep talking about. Book is the definition of text between two covers, e-book its modern version. It can stay that way. Newspaper, however, has gone from being a seal of quality to a dirty word. Lucky whoever manages to make the switch to magazine at the last minute with their print product, because magazine can do everything: sounds high-quality, tastes like color and entertainment, can come in print and/or digital and sell things on the side. But doesn't the magazine, in contrast to the hard knowledge currency of the newspaper, also have a bit of a cheap muse? Well, better than near death.

The core task of journalists is to question, even words. Am I doing journalism or content ? A newspaper, a magazine or news and media? Words set images free. We ourselves have to make sure that they are not the wrong ones.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor in Chief

f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch