German fig leaves
Oliver Classen on image complexes and Ringier's «Parzival» project.
Oliver Classen on profile neuroses and Ringier's "Parzival" projectIt has only been two months since Michael Ringier finally flushed out the "anti-observer" called "Thesis" and put his ominous "Gegen-Weltwoche" on ice. At the time, the self-confessed project fetishist announced that the Swiss German market was simply too small for the former and that the latter did not yet have a coherent marketing concept. And it had to be fixed. Edipresse's offer of a stake in Le Temps came at just the right time. The only problem was that the intellectual and moral weight of the French quality title was disproportionate to that of the aforementioned journalistic disgrace.
Bigger, more significant things were sought in order to finally mend the still painful breach - and at the same time end an intellectual profile neurosis from which the tabloid king and his court are clearly suffering.
Ringier's Berlin ambassador Frank A. Meyer has now found what he was looking for. Of all people! Didn't he recruit the journalists who were held solely responsible for the failure of the system at the time? Regardless of this, the Germanophile string-puller and his patron continue to rely on German workmanship. And with "Parzival", they have immediately snapped up the most Teutonic of all current magazine projects - in terms of name and claim.
Which is not to say that a German-language New Yorker equivalent is not desirable or feasible. But why should this prodigy emerge from the just-officialized amour fou between the Swiss headline publisher and an ex Springer editor-in-chief? And why cheat when Tamedia's "you" could be used to rescue a Swiss gem and bring it back to life?
could breed a world-class brand? In any case, the large-format magazine would be at least as suitable as a fig leaf.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
Bigger, more significant things were sought in order to finally mend the still painful breach - and at the same time end an intellectual profile neurosis from which the tabloid king and his court are clearly suffering.
Ringier's Berlin ambassador Frank A. Meyer has now found what he was looking for. Of all people! Didn't he recruit the journalists who were held solely responsible for the failure of the system at the time? Regardless of this, the Germanophile string-puller and his patron continue to rely on German workmanship. And with "Parzival", they have immediately snapped up the most Teutonic of all current magazine projects - in terms of name and claim.
Which is not to say that a German-language New Yorker equivalent is not desirable or feasible. But why should this prodigy emerge from the just-officialized amour fou between the Swiss headline publisher and an ex Springer editor-in-chief? And why cheat when Tamedia's "you" could be used to rescue a Swiss gem and bring it back to life?
could breed a world-class brand? In any case, the large-format magazine would be at least as suitable as a fig leaf.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
