Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), not bad.
I’m reading it now* and keep finding attempts at big subjects and attempts at big journalism, not always successful, but - all in all - the paper's not bad; until you compare it with British press. FAZ, just like other German papers, pales into the second league when put next to The Daily Telegraph, or even the lesser local papers, The Times (gone to the dogs in the last decade or so; camp, confused and as often wrong as right), The Guardian (strangely managing to combine a surprisingly high degree of intellectual sophistication with consistently funny* and loony leftism) or even the Independent (well, I read it from time to time; and haven’t suffered any side effects yet). Again and again, I am amazed and full of respect – along with a few U.S. papers (WSJ, NYT and maybe one or two others that I don’t know about) this is the best, both in the scope and depth of its interests, its courage and its delivery, daily press in the Western civilisation.
*or rather doing my best to read. My German wasn’t impressive even in its heyday; now it’s like a Trabant that hasn’t seen a mechanic since the fall of the Wall.
**or would be funny, if so many people weren’t fooled by it.
PS Interestingly, one of the first texts I come across in this old issue is a feature on Grimms’ fairy tales, which I’m in the process of re-writing. Actually, why not try…
