Frankfurter Rundschau

Frankfurter Rundschau

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Zeitungsholding Hessen (90%) Karl-Gerold-Stiftung (10%)
Editor	Thomas Kaspar
Founded	1 August 1945; 78 years ago (1945-08-01)
Political alignment	Centre-left Social liberalism, Social democracy
Language	de
Headquarters	Frankfurt, Germany
ISSN	0940-6980
Website	www.fr.de

The Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The Rundschau's editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-war Germany Frankfurter Rundschau was for decades a leading force of German press. Die newspaper was one of the first, which get licencened by the US military administration in 1945 and had a traditional stabel social democratic, antifascist and trade union stand. Starting with the decline of printed daily newspapers in the 2000s, the FR changed ownership several times, reduced its editorial team dramatically and today has little national significance.^[1]

Frankfurter Rundschau Druck and Verlagshaus GmbH filed for bankruptcy on 12 November 2012.^[2][3] Then the paper was acquired by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Frankfurter Societät (publisher of the Frankfurter Neue Presse) in 2013, by taking over just 28 full-time journalists.^[4] The FR editorial board continued to be bound by the legacy of Karl Gerold and the commitment to a "left-liberal" political line, and was integrated in the national and international editorial and correspondents network of the DuMont Mediengruppe, the former majority owners. The private foundation managing Karl Gerold's legacy still owns 10% of the shares. But all commercial activity of the paper, printing, selling advertisement and distribution was put in the hands of the Frankfurter Societät. The FR printing enterprise was closed. The contracts for printing BILD-Zeitung and other papers went from the FR's printshop to the FAZ's Societätsdruckerei.

On 1 April 2018, the Frankfurter Societät's ninety per-cent share was sold to Zeitungsholding Hessen, an investment vehicle of the publisher Dirk Ippen. In October 2021, Ippen blocked the publication by the Franfurter Rundschau of an investigative report on accusations of abuse of power made against former Bild editor, Julian Reichelt.