The '''Neue Zürcher Zeitung''' ('NZZ') is a major
Swiss daily newspaper based in
Zürich.
It is one of the oldest newspapers still published, appearing as '''Zürcher Zeitung''', edited by
Salomon Gessner, from
January 121780 and renamed to ''Neue Zürcher Zeitung'' in
1821. The newspaper is well known for its detailed reports on stock exchange, and the intellectual, in-depth style of its articles. Politically, it is positioned close to the liberal
Free Democratic Party of Switzerland.
It has a reputation as a world-class newspaper and as the Swiss
newspaper of record, with a small but influential circulation of 160,000. As its average reader is now over 50, its circulation is slowly declining. Aside from the switch from its
Blackletter typeface in 1946, the newspaper has changed little since the 1930s. The emphasis is on international news, business, finance, and high culture. Features and lifestyle stories are kept to a minimum.

''Zürcher Zeitung'', No. 1 (
1780)
In
2002, a weekend edition called ''NZZ am Sonntag'' (NZZ on Sunday) was launched. The ''NZZ am Sonntag'' has its own editorial staff and contains more
soft news and
lifestyle issues than its weekday counterpart, as do most Swiss weekend newspapers.
In 2005, the complete run of the first 225 years of the newspaper was scanned from
microfilm, a total of 2 million images comprising 70 terabytes, and its
blackletter type was
OCR:ed at a total cost of 600,000 euros (or 0.30 euro per image). The result is a searchable digital archive, which is however only available to the newspaper's own staff. The digitization was carried out by the
Fraunhofer Institut für Medienkommunikation (IMK, since renamed IAIS) in
Sankt Augustin.
External links
★ http://www.nzz.ch
★
70 Terabyte Zeitgeschichte (PDF) – Fraunhofer Magazin 2.2005