Short answers, pulled from the story.
Berner Zeitung published its first issue on the 3rd of January 1979. The paper emerged from a 1977 merger of combined predecessor titles, which itself followed a series of mergers stretching back to newspapers founded as early as 1834.
The first editor-in-chief was Peter Schindler, who served from 1979 to 1982. Subsequent editors included Urs P. Gasche, Ronald Roggen, Beat Hurni (1987-1996), and Andreas Z'Graggen (1996-2005). From 2006 to 2009, Markus Eisenhut and Michael Hug co-edited the paper.
Berner Zeitung reached its highest recorded circulation of 215,707 copies in 2006. In 2008 it was the third most read newspaper in Switzerland, with a circulation of 213,000 copies.
Berner Zeitung is published by Tamedia and is based in Bern, Switzerland. Its long-serving publisher Charles von Graffenried held the role until his death on the 4th of July 2012.
Berner Zeitung serves the Espace Mittelland region and the canton of Bern. It publishes regional editions through the Thuner Tagblatt in Thun, the Berner Oberländer in the Bernese Oberland, the Solothurner Tagblatt in Solothurn, and the BZ Langenthaler Tagblatt, which launched on the 2nd of July 2012.
Four publications contributed to the creation of Berner Zeitung: the Intelligenzblatt (founded 1834, later renamed Berner Tagblatt), the Emmenthaler Nachrichten (1883), the weekly newspaper of Emmenthal (1844), and the Neue Berner Zeitung (1919). The Emmenthaler Blatt and the Neue Berner Zeitung merged in 1973; that combined paper then merged with the former Emmenthaler Nachrichten in 1977 to form the Berner Nachrichten, which launched under the Berner Zeitung name in January 1979.