Saxony-Anhalt prime minister Reiner Haseloff isn't clear whether he reads it, but every morning, he fetches the newspaper from the letterbox and lays it on the breakfast table for his wife.

But at the official start-up of a new KBA Commander CL newspaper press at Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in Halle, Germany, he gave newspapers credit for credibility: "Long-term studies have shown that people view daily newspapers as the most credible of all media.

"They are seen as particularly discerning, competent, objective and critical," he told more than 100 guests at the inauguration ceremony at the MZ print centre.

Among them Christian DuMont Schütte, chairman of the supervisory board of the Cologne-based DuMont media group - which owns the newspaper - his deputy Isabella Neven DuMont, chief executive Christoph Bauer, chief financial officer Stefan Hütwohl and chief operating officer Otto Christian Lindemann.

In his address, Stefan Hütwohl emphasised that the investment in the new KBA press was not only a commitment to the group's Halle location, but "a demonstration of faith in the future of the printed newspaper".

Contracts were signed for the new Commander CL almost exactly a year ago, continuing a partnership which has thrived for more than 180 years, and DuMont Druck managing director Bernd Preuße says the past months showed that "our investment was very definitely the right decision".

The four-high press is engineered to print up to 45,000 full-colour newspapers per hour, either with 32 pages in Rhine format or 64 pages tabloid. Almost 200,000 copies of Mitteldeutsche Zeitung and a further 1.3 million copies of advertising newspapers Wochenspiegel and Super Sonntag will now be produced on the Commander CL.

Pictured (from top): the official handover (from left) Waldemar Geuthner (Aroprint Bernburg), project manager Thomas Bergmann, sales director Stefan Segger and sales manager Günter Noll (all KBA Digital & Web), Bernd Preuße and MZ Druckgesellschaft managing director Jürgen Kistner;

The new four-high KBA Commander CL which replaces two KBA Express satellite presses dating from 1992;

Prime minister Reiner Haseloff and Bernd Preuße press the start button