The Top Ten of world’s best newspapers

At the turn of the year 2023/2024, the Berlin-based IMH-Internationale Medienhilfe (International Media Aid) conducted a large-scale representative survey for the fifth time to determine the newspapers that enjoy the greatest reputation worldwide. In each of 50 countries, 60 people were asked by e-mail and telephone which internationally distributed newspaper they thought was the best. The total of 3,000 respondents included entrepreneurs, journalists, teachers, university lecturers, politicians, advertising experts and other groups of people. The majority of survey participants (17.2%) voted for the New York-based “Wall Street Journal”, which came in second place in the previous opinion poll.

The following ranking lists the 10 most mentioned newspapers:

Top Ten of the world’s best newspapers (the results of the previous survey from 2005 are in brackets)

rank / title and country of publication / mentions in percent

1. (2) The Wall Street Journal (USA): 17.2 (17.0)
2. (5) Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland): 14.4 (12.1)
3. (6) The New York Times (USA): 14.1 (8.1)
4. (1) Financial Times (Great Britain): 13.8 (19.4)
5. (9) El País (Spain): 9.0 (1.9)
6. (15) Le Figaro (France): 8.7 (0.2)
7. (3) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany): 8.6 (16.2)
8. (16) The Jerusalem Post (Israel): 4.9 (0.1)
9. (-) L’Osservatore Romano (Vatican City State): 1.3 (-)
10. (16) Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan): 0.9 (0.1)

remaining newspapers as a whole: 7.1 (3.7)

The good results from the “Wall Street Journal” and “Financial Times” show that newspapers with strong economic reporting are considered particularly factual and reliable. The fact that the “NZZ” has such a reputation seems to be due to its new editorial orientation and Switzerland’s generally positive, neutral image. “The New York Times” has recovered from previous scandals. “Le Figaro” from Paris made it back into the top ten in this survey (it was there in 1996 and 2003). New to the top 10 is the “Jerusalem Post” from Israel. The newspaper has certainly received a boost in the survey because the Holy Land is currently once again in the international news spotlight. The Vatican paper “L’Osservatore Romano” owes its new entry not only to its special position and its long tradition since 1861, but above all to the seven different language editions – including one in English, with which people in a wide variety of cultural areas can be reached. The Japanese “Yomiuri Shimbun”, which debuted at number 10, is the highest-circulation newspaper in the world.

In the last opinion poll from 2005, in which 1,000 people were surveyed, the “Financial Times” came first. Information about previous surveys can be found in the press reports at the bottom of our following website: www.medienhilfe.org/pressespiegel

Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH) is the association of German-language media abroad and foreign-language media in Germany. We advise and support publishing, broadcasting and internet companies worldwide so that they are fit for the future. The German-Austrian journalism magazine MEDIUM MAGAZIN wrote: “Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH) is the only global media network based in Germany.”

Swiss newspaper article about the IMH survey from 2024: