P.M. BRIEFING : E. German Readers Look West
East German newspapers, despite their new look and content, are losing millions of readers who are unwilling to pay higher prices and are apparently switching to the racier West German press.
The Communist youth daily Junge Welt reported today that 3.6 million national newspaper and magazine subscriptions, about one-quarter of the total, had been canceled recently.
Those newspapers, once simply the mind-numbing mouthpiece of East Germany’s hard-line Communist rulers, have been free to report what they like since the revolution that has turned the country on its head in less than six months. But starting Monday they were also forced to triple or quadruple their prices after hefty subsidies from the state coffers were abolished.
Deputy Post Minister Hans-Juergen Niehof told Junge Welt that he estimated sales of East German newspapers at kiosks had dropped by about 1 million copies, or 37%.
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