Prussian-Helvetic craftsmanship
Ringier's Cicero magazine is supposed to be a printed salon. The decor and staff fulfill this promise.
Ringier's Cicero magazine is supposed to be a printed salon. Anyone who has ever attended one of his rare lectures knows that he speaks (even) better than he writes. It is therefore only logical that the "Magazin für politische Kultur", which finally appeared this Thursday after months of announcements, bears the name of the forefather of all state-supporting chief rhetoricians and publicists. Frank A. Meyer was nothing less in Zurich and Bern - and is now in Berlin. FAM, the spiritus rector behind Cicero, not only has this talent in common with his Roman guarantor, but also with his friend in the Federal Chancellery, which is why the first matt-gloss issue, stylishly front-decorated by the iconic painter Jörg Immendorf, opens with the current whipping boy of the German press. And rehabilitates, even ennobles him in places. FAM's cover interview with Gerhard Schröder "on the impositions of office" and - of course others - "failures in politics" as well as Jim Rakete's photo essay on the lonely chancellor are contrasted by a biting contribution from former SPD leader Rudolf Scharping with the unambiguous headline "My party is threatening to freeze to death".
However, this explicit counter-position would not have been necessary to make it clear that Cicero is not just a self-fulfilment organ for FAM. The spectrum of opinions is too broad for that, the team of authors too colorful. Even Meyer's aristocratic Tamedia antagonist Roger de Weck was invited to pontificate on "The accidents of the know-it-all Generation Golf".
Editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer and his crew, who conceive rather than write, seem to have a good instinct for topics and even better contacts. In the history of the German press, you have to look all the way back to the "Weltbühne", not coincidentally declared to be a role model, before you come across a similarly dense network of intellectual greats (Umberto Eco, Arthur Miller, Milton Friedman et al).
Weltbühne is also the name of the first of the five main sections, followed by Berliner Republik, Medienmacht, Kapital - including "Mensch Meyer", the obligatory FAM column - and finally Salon. Weimer writes the question "Is there a beyond of irony?" on the wallpaper door. The visuals, designed by art director Katharina Glaser, are also unagitated and serious: solid, full-page photos leave room for ciceronian flights of thought, but also for original cartoons from the New Yorker and other illustrative sprinklings.
With a paid circulation of 50,000, he can already "live well and in the long term", said publisher Michael Ringier in the run-up to the launch. Following the launch, publishing director Martin Paff added: "If we can maintain this level of bookings, we will break even much faster than we actually have to."
If Cicero really does become a success story, this would also be thanks to the US company Conde Nast, which is not developing a German equivalent to the New Yorker or Vanity Fair after all. And of course FAM, who could have said the Schröder quote that gave the magazine its title himself: "Nobody should hope that I get tired". We prefer to hope and wait for the next Cicero.
Oliver Classen
However, this explicit counter-position would not have been necessary to make it clear that Cicero is not just a self-fulfilment organ for FAM. The spectrum of opinions is too broad for that, the team of authors too colorful. Even Meyer's aristocratic Tamedia antagonist Roger de Weck was invited to pontificate on "The accidents of the know-it-all Generation Golf".
Editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer and his crew, who conceive rather than write, seem to have a good instinct for topics and even better contacts. In the history of the German press, you have to look all the way back to the "Weltbühne", not coincidentally declared to be a role model, before you come across a similarly dense network of intellectual greats (Umberto Eco, Arthur Miller, Milton Friedman et al).
Weltbühne is also the name of the first of the five main sections, followed by Berliner Republik, Medienmacht, Kapital - including "Mensch Meyer", the obligatory FAM column - and finally Salon. Weimer writes the question "Is there a beyond of irony?" on the wallpaper door. The visuals, designed by art director Katharina Glaser, are also unagitated and serious: solid, full-page photos leave room for ciceronian flights of thought, but also for original cartoons from the New Yorker and other illustrative sprinklings.
With a paid circulation of 50,000, he can already "live well and in the long term", said publisher Michael Ringier in the run-up to the launch. Following the launch, publishing director Martin Paff added: "If we can maintain this level of bookings, we will break even much faster than we actually have to."
If Cicero really does become a success story, this would also be thanks to the US company Conde Nast, which is not developing a German equivalent to the New Yorker or Vanity Fair after all. And of course FAM, who could have said the Schröder quote that gave the magazine its title himself: "Nobody should hope that I get tired". We prefer to hope and wait for the next Cicero.
Oliver Classen
