In praise of the commuter newspaper

How I get the Swiss tea

Feb 14, 2025

I can’t speak for all of Europe, but print magazines and papers seem to be very much alive in Switzerland, France, and Germany, the countries I’m in most. The newsstand literature may not be the most high-brow – last week I spotted Swiss Cat Magazine, “a must for friends of cats,” at the grocery store. Then again, when we pass through Frankfurt airport, you can always get free copies of various German newspapers and an international New York Times. I’m not someone who “commutes” by plane; today I want to talk about Switzerland’s weekday commuter paper, 20 Minuten, or depending on where you live 20 Minutes or 20 Minuti. There’s no Romansch edition.

A 20 Minuten newspaper box and a graffiti, another Swiss specialty

I bike to work most days and don’t stop at any of the paper boxes I pass. On rainy days, though, I try to grab one when I transfer trams. It’s an excellent way to practice my German and learn about the odd things happening in Switzerland and around the world. Once I’m done reading, I save the paper for cleaning mirrors or stuffing into my wet sneakers to dry them out. Can a news app do that?

Some things I’ve learned from 20 Minuten include:

a wolf killed two goats and a sheep in Hundwil, Appenzell. I can’t find a link to the article in 20 Minuten, but the wording struck me. The “Wolf reisst” the goats – the wolf ripped or tore them. That’s what they do! While looking for this article again, I learned that wolves are ripping a lot of sheep, goats, and even horses and alpacas throughout Switzerland. And apparently one was spotted in Lörrach, a German town just across the border from Basel. Hope I see a wolf; hope it doesn’t rip me.
Speaking of alpacas, in Wednesday’s paper, a “News-Scout” (what it seems you become once you send a picture and some information to 20 Minuten) spotted a couple and an alpaca boarding a train in the Amriswil train station.
IWB, the power supply company, gifted a giant crystal to the Basel Natural History Museum
“the Internet amused itself” over a funny picture of 2024 Swiss president Viola Amherd at the Ukrainian Peace Summit in Switzerland last summer. Amherd has now rotated out of the presidency, is retiring, and this year’s president is Karin Keller-Sutter.
The Federal Councillors go on an annual field trip together every year to the president’s home canton. Look at them, doing extremely Swiss activities.

The paper includes local and world news-news, which is mainly how I learn about murders, and a girl gang beating up their schoolmate. There’s also lots of fluff about celebrities, athletes, and royals I’ve never heard of. If, like me, you’re only certain that England and Spain have royals, here’s a game: type [name of a European country] king” (or queen or whatever royal title) into a search engine and see what you learn.

From the back pages of 20 Minuten, I learned that Robbie Williams, who is currently portraying himself as a monkey in the movie Better Man, had a vacation home in Gstaad, which he was selling (no updates on the sale). More recently, the paper informed me that Timothée Chalamet “suddenly loves scarves”.

If you lived and commuted in DC before September 2019, you might remember Express, the Washington Post’s commuter paper (RIP). An article announcing its demise noted “deteriorating financial conditions” as the reason for the publication’s end.

In the last year, there have been layoffs at Tamedia, the media company that owns 20 Minuten, as well as other Swiss media companies. I sometimes think (and I know I’m not alone) that Switzerland is behind the U.S. by a few years. I hope I’m wrong in this case, and that 20 Minuten doesn’t go the way of Express.