Klaus Zeyringer: “The spice of brevity”

It’s possible that the coworkers who work in “Miscellaneous,” now also known as “Panorama” or “From all over the world,” occasionally fantasize of writing a message like this on the paper: “The nurse Elise Bachmann, who had her day off yesterday, behaved like a madwoman on the street.” With that as the start of the week, the following may be added on Wednesday or Thursday to entirely rescue it: “Yesterday, a crazy woman was detained on the street after pretending to be nurse Elise Bachmann. She has excellent health.”

You can picture the response. Angry letters to the editor would be written, and the editor-in-chief would claim that was completely impossible. Félix Fénéon, a writer, used to make purrs like to those described here for the daily newspaper. the morning’s idea. They are known as “nouvelles en trois lignes” (news in three lines) in literary and journalism history, and they have a significant place in Klaus Zeyringer’s book “Die Spice of Brevity.” It is a charmingly two-pronged book that is either a history of the press with a focus on mixed media or a history of mixed reporting in relation to press developments.

When was the last time you commended “the newspaper” in such a flattering way?

As an example of the narrative’s breadth, Kleist’s characteristically condensed linguistic masterpieces in the Berliner Abendblatt are contrasted with the bitter realization that the thematic and linguistic originality of the mixed pages is frequently not far off today. Klaus Zeyringer, an Austrian Germanist, is praised as a scientist who knows how to captivate. There is so much silly entertainment in between that it would be easy to simply look through Zeyringer’s book for a laugh. Which, of course, is permitted and brings about a great deal of fun, as seen, for instance, in the Viennese original Poldi Beck, who once—and only once—published the journal The Bins.

It stated, for instance, that the sales representative Jonas Grün had lunch at the “Wilder Mann” on Tuesday, which included Schöberl soup, garnished beef, and apple strudel, under the description “Indifferent from all over the world.” In conclusion, “He really enjoyed it.” On forums like this, this kind of global invention is carried out. Postilion proceeded, who once followed in the footsteps of Beck and Fénéon with the statement “When Lothar Wessing from Potsdam peeked out the window on February 12, 1993 at 8:12 a.m., he could not believe his eyes.”

Zeyringer has a testimonial prepared for the Mischte Nachrichten, the Faits Divers, Kleine Chroniken, and “People” sections that is more admirably and honestly described of their innermost being. He claims that by making the situation personal and connecting it to “the neighborhood of their own lives,” Hinz and Kunz are able to see their own selves, their peers, and their place in it. In this sense, the newspaper “creates the bridge between world processes and the ego,” he claims in his conclusion.

Diderot discovered that, in general, it is not the job of journalists to make people laugh.

When was the last time you commended “the newspaper” in such a flattering way? As you can see, the joke isn’t that broad; Jonas Grün’s lunch and the insane nurse Elise are by no means the key points. Zeyringer staged a meeting between Denis Diderot, David Hume, and Baron d’Holbach to remind journalists of the ethics of their line of work. The Lisbon earthquake and the ensuing debate over whether it is appropriate to declare such a natural disaster – a mixed subject of huge dimensions – as a moral event are topics that are discussed by the three. The usual highly anti-clerical and enlightening topics are covered, along with the guidelines Diderot outlined for journalists in the Encyclopédie: Humor is OK if the subject can handle it, but essentially, it is not the job of journalists to make people laugh.

The fact that mixed reports used to be more common than they are now is undoubtedly connected to the credibility issue. Zeyringer shares accounts about children with two or more heads miscarrying. It was possible that the information about it continued to circulate from page to page (in France, in 1676, there were seven). Since presenting proof was challenging, if not impossible, the defense usually relied on the testimony of several witnesses or the idea that God had predetermined the outcome.

In one version, it was reported that “many thousand people” witnessed the dogfight between an eagle and a lion in 1628, during which the bird is believed to have “bit out the lion’s throat.” The other was used as a guarantee when Vienna had a blood and sulfur rain shortly after. The Munich magazine Weekly regular newspaper summed up the idea as “The meaning is known to God.” Today, anyone who did that would be questioned about the whereabouts of the proof and the reason why, if there was any concrete evidence, he hadn’t at the very least contacted the Austrian meteorological service.

By Editor

One thought on ““The flavor of brevity,” says Klaus Zeyringer”

Leave a Reply