Mulheim.
A life without a newspaper is unthinkable for the Benders from Mülheim. The retired couple use the e-paper to keep up to date when they are out and about.
They love their newspaper, that quickly becomes clear with Gabriele and Birger Bender from Saarn. They read the printed copy in the traditional way at the breakfast table in the morning, and their WAZ goes with them – not only – in digital form when they travel. What the Mülheim couple particularly like about the digital edition, the e-paper.
The distribution of roles is clear here – at least when it comes to reading the newspaper: in the morning he grabs the main part of the current issue and hands Birger Bender over the sports pages, the Mülheim local section and the cultural reporting to his wife Gabriele. This sociable sharing of newspapers is part of the morning ritual for the people of Saarland, just like freshly brewed coffee. On vacation, reading at the same time becomes a little more difficult, because then the daily newspaper appears on your tablet – as an e-paper. Since the device cannot be divided into two parts, the Benders usually travel with even more technology: one then reads on the tablet, the other on the laptop, Birger Bender describes the alternative far away from home.
In addition to the digital edition, the Mülheim couple also use the printed newspaper
However, Gabriele cannot imagine switching completely to digital – yet. “I couldn’t live without a printed newspaper, it’s just my medium. I love the effect when you turn the pages,” describes the 66-year-old, even though she admits: “Saving paper is important.” In this case, however, environmental protection by doing without printed matter would mean too much deprivation for her. So the freshly printed copy lands in the Benders’ mailbox every morning – as it has for decades.
And yes, the Benders also pay attention to the obituaries, after all they contain important news, says Birger Bender: “I find out from the newspaper who died.” He grew up in Saarn, knows a lot of people from his area and wants to know the 65-year-old describes what happened.
A 65-year-old from Mülheim reads the exact image of the printed newspaper on his tablet
The advantages are obvious for him. The e-paper as a digital copy of the printed newspaper is already available the evening before. “I look in there when something spectacular has happened,” says the former mining engineer and finds it “fascinating that the edition is updated” when the newspaper editors have published a revised version of an article behind their screens.
The 65-year-old expertly wipes his finger page by page through the digital edition, which is an exact copy of the printed newspaper.
“We decided to do it at some point when we went on vacation. We were in France for three weeks – that would have been too long for us without news from home,” recalls Gabriele Bender, who worked as an assistant at Tengelmann.
The digital travel companion, which has the headlines – not only – from Mülheim in its luggage, was recently there when Birger Bender was staying with a group of Mülheim residents in the holiday home of the Broich-Saarn parish in Westkapelle in the Netherlands. “When I was on kitchen duty, I was able to ask the others at 7:30 in the morning: Did you get that from Mülheim?” the pensioner says, not without a mischievous grin.
The Mülheim edition is stapled to the start page of the e-paper and is easily accessible
His messages from Mülheim are only a few taps or mouse clicks away: “I stapled the Mülheim issue in the e-paper so that I ended up in the right local section.”
The Benders find it practical that they can also call up all the other local editions of the WAZ, but not as exciting as what is happening on their doorstep – at most Gabriele Bender uses the function for cultural matters and wanders through the e-paper, for example to the Duisburger Culture.
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Will they one day disappear behind a screen over coffee in their cozy house in Saarn to read the newspaper? “That would be like in the cartoon,” Birger Bender shakes her head. For his wife, too, that would be a future scenario that seems light years away. For Gabriele Bender it is clear what she would miss the most – despite the current news: “The rustling of the newspaper.”
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