DOMO June 2013 pdf - Ringier

Interview: a digital native explains his generation page 18
D MO
The in-house journal
June 2013
Mediathon
News as
soap opera
Angela Merkel
The political duel of the year
Can Peer Steinbrück wrest the power from the head of government?
Introducing the chancellor-makers – their advisers in the background

CONTENTS
4 German Election
Beate Baumann and Hans-Roland
Fäßler are respectively Angela
Merkel’s and Peer Steinbrück’s
personal confidantes. They are
fighting their battle behind the
scenes.
10 Binge viewing
At last, TV series addicts are getting
what they want: their favorite series,
without interruptions in a new trend
that will change television.
12 Mediathon
The world’s most popular media genre
makes facts take a back seat to drama.
16 Focus on Ringier
The best press photos of the last
quarter from around the world.
18 Interview
Heads of major companies seek his
advice: At 18, Philipp Riederle is a
star of the Internet scene.
22 Tribute
They have our backs: telephone
operators.
24 Inhouse: Blick am Abend
Switzerland’s only evening paper is
celebrating its 5th anniversary.
26 Ringier meets the stars
Covering media events with Roger
Federer – when seasoned journalists
turn into groupies.
28 Michael Ringier
Our publisher believes in the magic
of print.
29 Talk
Questions for Ringier’s management
30 Anniversaries
Deaths / Anniversaries / Recommended
reading
Coverfoto: Martin Schoeller/ AUGUST
Publishing Information
Publisher: Ringier AG, Corporate Communications.
Executive Director: Edi Estermann,
CCO, Dufourstrasse 23, 8008 Zurich, Phone
+41 44 259 63 49. Editor-in-chief: Bettina
Bono, Phone +41 44 259 60 36, Fax +41 44 259
86 35, bettina.bono@ringier.ch. Contributors:
Hannes Britschgi, Christian Bürge, Ulli
Glantz (visual realization), Helmut-Maria Glogger,
Peter Hossli, Stephanie Ringel. Translators:
Xavier Pellegrini/Textes.ch (Geneva), Claudia
Bodmer (Zurich), Imre Hadzsi/Word by Word
(Budapest), Adina Preda (Bucharest), Lin Chao/
Yuan Pei Translation (Beijing). Art Direction:
Stéphane Carpentier. Layout /Production:
Nadine Zuberbühler, Adligenswil (Switzerland),
Jinrong Zheng (China). Image Processing:
Ringier Redaktions Services Zurich. Printed at:
Ringier Print Ostrava and SNP Leefung Printers.
No portion of this publication may be reprinted
without the editor’s permission. Circulation:
12,400 copies. DOMO is published in German,
English, French, Romanian, Hungarian and
Chinese.
Photo: Stefan Boness/ Ipon, Darrin Vanselow für L’Illustré, Ben Thorndike/ AP Photo/ Keystone, Handout, Franck Faugere/ Agence DPPI/ Freshfocus, Alescha Birkenholz
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in-house journal
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DOMO – June 2013 | 3

GERMAN ELECTION
She’s got her...
POWER
...he’s handling him
STRUGGLE
DOMO – June 2013 | 5

•
GERMAN ELECTION
Aces up the candidates’
sleeves
In September, Germany will be electing a new head of government. The opposition
candidate for the chancellorship, Peer Steinbrück, and the incumbent, Angela
Merkel, will be relying primarily on their respective confidantes. The home stretch
of the electoral campaign will feature a showdown between the colorful media
adviser Hans-Roland Fäßler and the quiet office manager, Beate Baumann.
Text: Stephanie Ringel. Photos: Frank Zauritz, Laurence Chaperon/ Roba Press, Astrid Ott, Guido Bergmann/Bundesregierung/ddp
It is no secret that Germany’s Social
Democratic Party (SPD) and its
candidate Peer Steinbrück, 66, have
embarked on this electoral campaign
less than gracefully, and there is no
end to the mishaps. A while ago Peer
Steinbrück posted a handwritten
note on Facebook. Alluding to a
military metaphor he had famously
used in 2009, it read: «It is becoming
obvious how inadequately the government
has negotiated the tax
agreement with Switzerland. Sometimes,
sending in the cavalry is better
than diplomacy.» A member of Steinbrück’s
entourage whispered the
following well-meant statement to
the German tabloid Bild: «His penmanship
is so beautiful. That’s why
we used this opportunity to show it.»
Let’s hope the adviser isn’t betting
on the wrong horse – to adopt Mr.
Steinbrück’s equestrian terminology.
That very newspaper had the chairman
of the German graphologist association
analyze Mr. Steinbrück’s
handwriting. The result is – to put it
mildly – unfavorable. «While writing
the note about the tax agreement,
Mr. Steinbrück obviously wasn’t having
a good day. The handwriting
displays instances of shakiness,
dents and deformations. All of this
indicates the strong internal pressure
that the writer is experiencing.»
The advisers had meant to portray
their candidate as down-to-earth
(using the mass medium Facebook),
personal (handwriting) and capable
(key political issue). However, which
words stuck in people’s minds?
Shakiness, dents, deformations. One
begins to pity this man who is in dire
need of positive attention. Instead he
•
They have been
best friends
for more than
a quarter of a
century: Peer
Steinbrück (left)
and his media adviser
Hans-Roland
Fäßler. Experts
consider Hans-
Roland Fäßler to
be a tough guy
– someone with
sharp edges.
is obliged to read headlines that cast
doubt on his party’s ability to govern.
Angela Merkel, 58, has been Germany’s
Federal Chancellor since 2005
and is proving every day – especially
with respect to Europe’s financial
crisis – that she is capable of leading,
making decisions and defusing crises.
She is head of the government
and of her own party, the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU). To the German
people she comes across as a
«I don’t want to
take off as an
eagle and land as
a stewing hen.»
Hans-Roland Fäßler
likeable doer. She obviously has to
put up with her share of malice; that
is part and parcel of any politician’s
life, male or female. Her nickname
«Mutti» (Mummy) is not always
meant in a nice way.
Mummy Merkel and Cavalryman
Peer each sport a team of advisers
who mean to make their candidates
shine and bring them through the
campaign and into power. Merkel has
been taught to shape her hands into
a heart while speaking. Steinbrück is
practicing to force the drooping corners
of his mouth into a smile as
much as possible. The people in the
wings are considered chancellormakers;
secret aces up the candidates’
sleeves that ensure perfect
public performances.
Every Federal Chancellor has a
trusted inner circle of people surrounding
him. He can be sure that
nothing they discuss in confidence
will leave those walls – or worse, that
it will be used against him. It is a matter
of absolute loyalty. Helmut Kohl’s
ace was the head of his office, Juliane
Weber. Gerhard Schröder relied on
Sigrid Krampitz. Angela Merkel puts
her trust in Beate Baumann. This
49-year-old adviser excels at tailoring
her role to the Chancellor’s needs
and has done so for years.
Who stands behind Peer Steinbrück
– the contender? One by one he has
been introducing his male-dominated
campaign team. His most important
man and first among equals is
Hans-Roland Fäßler, 63. Fäßler, a
media adviser, and the SPD politician
have known each other since 1986
and been best friends for more than
a quarter of a century. They call each
other Peer and Rolli, which is remarkable,
because Angela Merkel
and Beate Bauman remain on a last
name basis despite having worked
together for 20 years. Fäßler was
born in Augsburg, Germany, but
boasts Swiss roots from the canton of
Appenzell Innerrhoden. His ancestors
emigrated in the 18th century.
He feels «a certain emotional attachment»
to Switzerland, as he revealed
to the Swiss weekly Zentralschweiz
am Sonntag. Swiss-style discretion,
however, is not one of his assets. He
Although Angela
Merkel (left) and
her office manager
Beate Baumann
have been working
together for
20 years, they
are still on a last
name basis.
Behind the desk
hangs a photo of
Konrad Adenauer,
Germany’s first
Chancellor after
the war; Merkel
calls him her role
model.
loves to give interviews, smiles into
any camera and receives interview
partners at the politicians’ waterhole
Café Einstein in Berlin. Someone
who has known him for a long time
told reporters of the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel,
«He likes to give himself
airs,» and it wasn’t meant in a nasty
way. After all, Fäßler is supposed to
pave Steinbrück’s way to the leading
representatives of the media. Maybe
then they will report more favorably
on Steinbrück and his handwriting.
Following an internship with the local
daily Augsburger Allgemeine,
Fäßler joined the Bavarian public
broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk
in 1971. He became a radio journalist
while a registered member of the
Social Democratic Party. This was not
unusual, because for his generation
of journalists it was normal to take
up a political position. In the mid-
1980s Fäßler began to set up the
broadcasting agency Rufa. After ten
years he became managing director
of radio and TV with the film production
company UFA. As of the mid-
1990s he ran the radio and television
production division of the Hamburg
publishing house Gruner + Jahr. Over
the course of those years the media
specialist met important personalities
in the Social Democratic Party.
He knew Gerhard Schröder from the
Young Socialists’ national conventions.
According to the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, he traveled to
Cuba with Willy Brandt. He became
friends with Johannes Rau, Germany’s
President from 1999 to 2004,
who introduced him to politician and
lobbyist Wolfgang Clement and later
Peer Steinbrück.
Today, Hans-Roland Fäßler is selfemployed
and general manager of
the consulting firm Polimedia, headquartered
near Hamburg. That is
why, for a long time, he remained
«amicably under cover,» as he puts
it. He quietly supported his friend
from the wings, waiving any fees for
his services. Things got noisier when
he was suspected of being the man
behind the ill fated «PeerBlog». Following
the example of the U.S. election
campaign, a media adviser from
Düsseldorf wanted to blog for Steinbrück.
Five businessmen provided
him with a six-figure budget, according
to Der Spiegel. The donors remained
anonymous. When Germany’s
parliament, the Bundestag,
announced an inquiry and cyber
attacks paralyzed the server, the
blog was taken off the web mere days
after its launch.
With his appointment to the campaign
team Fäßler has finally become
an official adviser. His new task concerns
strategy. He is supposed to
come up with issues that candidate a
6 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 7

•
GERMAN ELECTION
a Steinbrück will make his own. It is
said that he wants to attack Merkel on
aspects of modern life: single mothers,
gay couples, the prevalent lifestyles
of the urban population.
Hans-Roland Fäßler is considered a
tough guy. The Spiegel calls him
«testosterone-driven», the Süddeutsche
Zeitung describes him as
having «sharp edges». He likes to be
quoted with the following statement:
«I don’t want to take off as an eagle
and land as a stewing hen.»
Angela Merkel’s adviser does not
want to be quoted at all. She never
grants interviews and does not want
to be photographed. Her official title
is office manager, an innocuous
sounding term. In point of fact Beate
Baumann is the Chancellor’s most
important adviser. Nobody gets
«Baumann
can get damn
dangerous»
closer to Merkel than she does. She is
the most powerful member of the
head of government’s entourage.
Former German President Christian
Wulff says that the two women have
«absolute mutual trust». When Angela
Merkel had broken her leg and
was lying in the Berlin hospital
Charité in 1992, complaining that she
needed office help in her new job as
deputy leader of the party, Christian
Wulff, then Prime Minister of the
State of Lower Saxony, recommended
Beate Bauman. She was a member
of the CDU, had just finished her
teaching training and written a thesis
on «Die temporalen Konjunktionen
im Deutschen» (The temporal
conjunctions in German). She was a
linguist and had no truck with poetry
or the arts section of the newspaper.
Her paper required sober,
analytical thinking - like that of Angela
Merkel, the physicist.
The women soon met and jointly set
out on their journey to the summit of
political power in Germany; from the
ministry of Family Affairs to the
Ministry for the Environment,
the party headquarters, to leader of
the parliamentary party, to the Chancellor’s
office. Baumann is always
Merkel’s shadow. Merkel performs to
the outside world, Baumann rules on
the inside. She is a government employee
fulfilling her duty, while pulling
the strings with a strong hand.
What’s more, both women have begun
to meld, visually and in daily life
at the office.
They share a taste for straight cut
blazers with big buttons, flat shoes
and short, low-maintenance hairdos,
and hardly any make-up. Baumann’s
office is on the 7th floor of the
Bundeskanzleramt, two rooms down
from the Chancellor’s. Her doors are
open. When something needs to be
discussed, you just walk over there.
People say that one can see a «beaten
track» on the carpet. Formerly, when
Gerhard Schröder was Chancellor,
his confidante was lodged on the
floor below.
Scoffers have dubbed the Merkel-
Baumann duo a «girls’ camp», as
opposed to Steinbrück’s «boy group»
entourage, which – according to Der
Spiegel – «displays a higher degree of
hysteria». The Steinbrück gang, however,
is also said to have more fun,
drinking together, smoking cigars
and celebrating. Merkel and Baumann
are not into partying together,
but are «solid workers in the
coalmine of politics», women who
are not given to blathering. Their
strategy is to spread their mantra-like
message among the people: Merkel
is the woman who is capable of handling
anything, always keeping on an
even keel, and has been for years. For
that same reason Merkel’s Facebook
page does not boast any handwritten
notes. Untainted by dents or shakiness,
it presents a record of where
Angela Merkel last said what in public
– from the latest concert by star
violinist David Garrett to her meeting
with Pope Francis. Their goal is, in
sober and no-nonsense terms: the
preservation of power.
It is Beate Baumann who sets the
tone of the Chancellery. She decides
In 2005 they
collaborated in
the grand coalition
between SPD and
CDU. Now they
promise the political
duel of the
year. Can the CDU
politician remain
Chancellor or will
the SPD challenger
wrest the power
from her?
what the Chancellor’s speeches and
interviews should sound like. She
writes and edits. She shapes the
overall image, the political gestures
and the public appearances. At the
so-called «Morgenlage» (morning
sitrep), the daily briefing with the
Chancellor at 8.30 a.m., she naturally
takes part, as indeed in most
other meetings. She determines
which issues make it to the Chancellor’s
office and which ones don’t.
Rumor has it that at one time, when
Merkel exhaustedly burst into tears
after a long day, Baumann hissed at
her boss: «Pull yourself together!»
Baumann is successful because of her
lack of vanity. She has a small apartment,
loves Scotland and enjoys
home cooking. Apart from that, she
devotes herself to the cause. And the
cause is Angela Merkel. If you want to
find out more about Beate Baumann,
maybe about her weaknesses – something
that everybody has, after all,
and that makes people likeable –
there is a sudden hush. A journalist
from Stern magazine recalls meeting
with a man from the CDU party for a
confidential conversation about la
Baumann. The man squirmed in his
chair, stammering, fell silent, then
cleared his throat. He sighed and finally
told her: «Baumann will try and
find out who you talked to. She’s so
paranoid. She can get damn dangerous,
like way back, when she…»
Germany will vote on September 22.
The showdown will not only concern
Merkel and Steinbrück. There is a
second struggle between the chancellor-makers
in the background.
This battle pits Baumann against
Fäßler.
«The situation is
unpredictable»
Germany’s current electoral
campaign is a struggle between
opposing factions. The issues
involved are a stable job market,
incalculable risks in European
policy and an increasing
social schism. Martina Fietz,
senior correspondent for Focus
Online in Berlin, analyzes the
state of the union and why
parties are so polarized.
Photo: Laurence Chaperon for Focus Online
Can Europe imagine a Germany without
the current Chancellor? Is Switzerland
betting on the physicist of power or the
cavalry’s commander-in-chief? Four
months before election day pollsters see
Angela Merkel way ahead of Peer Steinbrück,
but that doesn’t mean a thing. On
the evening of September 22, everything
will come down to one question: What
kind of coalition is possible? Will CDU/CSU
win enough votes to partner with the
FDP? Or maybe the SPD with The Greens?
Would the latter two be acceptable to the
Left Party? Will CDU team up with The
Greens? Or will there be another grand
coalition between CDU and SPD, which
most Germans favor? Anything is
possible, some things are more likely,
others less so. That makes the situation
unpredictable. As if to make the decision
easier for voters, the opposition parties
have opted for polarization: The SPD and
The Greens have evaded the Chancellor –
who has been moving towards the middle
– by decidedly positioning themselves on
the left. The country is seeing an election
campaign between factions.
Campaigning about issues
The governing parties’ top campaign issue
is the preservation of wealth; the opposition’s
is an increase in social justice. CDU
and FDP are pointing up their achievements:
a stable job market and a solid
economy, progress in budgetary consolidation
and a pragmatic course to stabilize
the Euro. SPD and The Greens complain
about widening gulfs in society, an
increase in precarious employment
situations and incalculable risks in
European politics. While the governing
parties warn of further burdens on
taxpayers and are even considering minor
forms of tax relief, the opposition is
banking on massive tax increases:
property tax, capital levy, higher maximum
tax rates, fewer tax benefits, higher
inheritance tax. The struggle over these
issues goes beyond mere semantics: The
burden of this taxation would deeply
affect the middle classes, says the
government, in reproach of its political
adversaries. The SPD and The Greens
maintain that they are solely concerned
with making the rich pay more towards
the costs of the community.
No obvious coalition
For a short while the left-wing parties
enjoyed a boost to their campaign due to
the tax scandal involving Ueli Hoeneß,
president of the prestigious soccer club FC
Bayern, and his Swiss bank account. In the
long run, however, this affair won’t help
the opposition, nor does the story about
Bavarian members of parliament employing
their relatives, which briefly threw the
CSU into a crisis. Merkel’s camp is hoping
that a good election result for the Union in
the Bavarian parliament elections one
week before the federal parliamentary
elections will help their own campaign.
To make the situation even more unpredictable,
a new party has entered the fight
for votes: The Alternative for Germany
(AfD) is mainly promoting itself with a
populist anti-European slant, including a
return to the country’s old currency, the
D-Mark. This party is considered especially
dangerous to the CDU, because it
attracts a part of the Union’s supporters
who are unhappy about Merkel’s government
policies in favor of a nuclear power
phase-out, the abolition of universal
conscription and the introduction of
quotas for women. However, as the SPD
candidate for the chancellorship well
knows, the AfD’s slogans also appeal to
social democratic voters. The pollsters
currently predict that the newcomers will
obtain three percent of the vote, which
would not get them into parliament. They
might, however, net some decisive
percentage points that could ultimately
prevent the creation of a clear-cut
coalition.
personal
Martina Fietz
The senior correspondent for FOCUS Online
lives in Berlin. She has been writing about the
business of politics since 1991. In Bonn she
used to observe chancellors, ministers, junior
ministers and parliamentary representatives
for the daily «Die Welt». In 2004 Fietz was a
founding team member of «Cicero» and
worked for this monthly until she switched to
online journalism in May 2010.
8 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 9

inge viewing
1
Glued to the tube
Why wait a whole week for the next episode of your
favorite series? That was yesterday. Binge viewing is
the new big thing. Netflix makes it possible, delighting
TV-series addicts while changing the medium itself.
Text: Peter Hossli. Photos: Starstock/ Photoshot, Handout
February 1, 2013, was a day of redemption
for us series addicts:
For the first time ever, an entire season
of a US TV series became available
at once. Thirteen episodes of
«House of Cards» were posted online
by Netflix. For thirteen consecutive
hours we were able to watch lead actor
Kevin Spacey ruthlessly pulling
strings in Washington D.C.’s world of
politics, making Machiavelli look like
an amateur.
More importantly, «House of Cards»
allowed its audience to indulge in
binge viewing.
The expression «binge viewing» is
derived from binge drinking, but
instead of drinking themselves into
oblivion binge viewers watch one or
even two seasons of the same series
over a single weekend, almost without
taking a break, until they’re exhausted.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung quite
rightly pointed out that with «House
of Cards» TV series stopped being
what they used to be. «House of
Cards» has turned them into an even
more addictive drug.
Traditional television series follow
the principle of letting some time pass
between two episodes, which permits
the audience to forget one thing or the
other; the directors of «House of
Cards», however, deliberately tell
their story for binge viewers. Episode
Two starts exactly where Episode One
left off. The narrative threads are so
complex and gripping that you have
to stay tuned constantly.
As with any addictive substance
there are economic reasons behind
this concept. The American DVD and
streaming company Netflix wants
customers to commit to its service.
Users pay a monthly fee that allows
them to watch as many series and
films as they like. Subscriber figures
1
Series: House
of Cards
On the air since:
February 2013
Channel: Netflix
Cast : Kevin
Spacey (photo),
Robin Wright, Kate
Mara, Corey Stoll
Episodes: Season
1 (13 episodes),
season 2 is in
production
Genre: Political
drama
2
Series: Homeland
On the air since:
October 2011
Channel: Showtime
Cast: Claire Danes
and Damian Lewis
(photo), Mandy
Patinkin, Morena
Baccarin
Episodes: 24
episodes in 2 seasons,
season 3 to
start in the US in
September 2013
Genre: Crime/
drama
2
skyrocketed when «House of Cards»
was released online.
This strategy is Netflix’s attempt to
set itself off from cable networks like
HBO or Showtime. The latter have
enjoyed a huge increase in subscribers
that have come to prefer the small
screen to the big movie theater over
the years thanks to first-rate TV series
produced by filmmakers; TV allows
them to develop a story not only
over the course of multiple episodes
but over several years.
Critics have come to praise American
TV series as works of art. Whether it’s
«Homeland», «Mad Men», «The West
Wing» or «The Wire» - when it comes
to cultural influence, these series
have left cinema behind. «The Big C»
takes a comedy approach to the story
of a mother suffering from cancer.
«The Newsroom» takes the news
business to task. «Six Feet Under» is
an accurate as well as emotional
portrait of a family of undertakers;
«Sex and the City» tells of the trials
and tribulations of four self-confident
women living in New York.
It all began with a family of New Jersey
mobsters. «The Sopranos» established
the genre of the high-end TV
series. «We owe everything to the
success of The Sopranos,» said «Mad
Men» author Matthew Weiner in an
interview with the German news
magazine Spiegel. For the first time
ever HBO had been willing to spend
a lot of money on each episode. Episodes
grew longer, and directors
dared to do what had so far only
seemed possible in movies. «The Sopranos»,
according to Weiner, offered
«complex characters, a continuous
3
3
Series: Six Feet
Under
On the air: June
2001 to August
2005
Channel: HBO
Cast: Richard
Jenkins (photo,
from left), Frances
Conroy, Lauren
Ambrose, Peter
Krause, Michael
C. Hall
Episodes:
63 episodes in
5 seasons
Genre: Dramedy
4
Series: The
Sopranos
On the air:
January 1999 to
June 2007
Channel: HBO
Cast: Michael
Imperioli (photo,
from left), Edie
Falco, James
Gandolfini,
Lorraine Bracco
Episodes:
86 episodes in
6 seasons
Genre: Drama
narrative, no censorship, no stars,
and scenes in which nobody was talking.»
The result: «Suddenly, people
who had largely stopped watching TV
were going back to watching TV.»
Television – infamous for being
dumb and lazy people’s preferred
means of killing time – has become
the pastime of the elite thanks to
these series. Or, as the German
weekly Die Zeit puts it: «Watching
series nowadays is a bit like only
watching soccer when the Champions
League is on.» HBO deliberately
advertises itself with the slogan: «It’s
Not TV. It’s HBO.» There are no commercial
breaks. Anything goes: nudity
and sex, bad language, realistic
violence.
The total running time of all episodes
of «The Sopranos» put together
amounts to roughly 80 hours. Not
one minute is boring, because good
series make a point of breaking the
ironclad rules of commercial television.
Soap operas have to allow the
viewer to tune in and follow the story
at any given point; protagonists are
not allowed to evolve, stories go
round in circles. With «Friends» you
can tune in six times a year. In «The
Sopranos» a popular character may
well die, and storylines take surprising
turns. «This changes viewer behavior,»
says «Mad Men» creator
Weiner. «People don’t tune in six
times a year but for every episode.»
Mind you, binge viewers never even
tune out.
4
10 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 11

•
mediathon
Information is becoming
soap opera
When the whole world is talking about it, when one
headline prevails and people are moved by pictures
and human-interest stories: that is what’s called a
Mediathon, the drama that no one can get enough of
– neither the public nor the media.
Text: Peter Hossli. Photos: Sherwin MGehee/ Getty Images Creative, Ben Thorndike/AP Photo/ Keystone
The first bomb blew up at 2.49 p.m.
near the finish line of the Boston
Marathon. Another bang came fourteen
seconds later: A second explosive
device, hidden inside a pressure
cooker, detonated. Three people
died, around 260 were injured, some
severely, suffering the loss of limbs.
Within minutes after the explosions
on April 15, Twitter spread the first
reports about the attack. Pictures
went online. Initially American websites
headlined «breaking news», but
the global media were quick to follow.
News tickers spread everything
that was known – regardless of
whether it was true. Soon, U.S. news
broadcasters had set up live feeds on
site. From that moment forward,
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC as well
Casualties, smoke
and devastation
on the corner
of Boylston and
Exeter – near the
finish line of the
Boston Marathon,
the oldest city
marathon in the
world.
as local stations reported non-stop
about the Boston bombings; so did
news portals on the Internet and
newspapers. Time magazine printed
a special edition. During the subsequent
few weeks the explosions
seemed to be the only story in the
media, not only in the United States
but in many places around the world.
At first, journalists pondered over
suspects, then over motives. They
depicted the hunt for the alleged
perpetrators as a dramatic spectacle
– broadcast live into cozy living
rooms and onto cellphones. One of
the suspects died and police caught
the other. The Boston bombers remained
ubiquitous for another week,
until they disappeared from the airwaves
– and from the public consciousness.
Thus ended what the
German weekly Der Spiegel had a
12 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 13

•
•
mediathon
1 2 3 4 5 6
a called «the United States’ most
spectacular media event in recent
years.»
Media around the world crave such
stories that they are able to stretch
over days or even weeks, as if they
were television series continuing on
and on, crowding out everything
else, on every channel, in every column,
on every cellphone and online.
In 2000, the American writer Frank
Rich trenchantly dubbed this genre
a «Mediathon», a media marathon.
The Mediathon, Rich wrote in the New
York Times Magazine at the time, was a
novel type of news spectacle that might
become «the most popular new cultural
form in America.»
Today it is the most popular media
genre in the world. Not every good
story turns into a Mediathon, only
those narratives which, as Rich put
it, lead to «total national immersion.»
Nowadays the whole world loses itself.
Everybody talks about it, everyone
is glued to the TV. Online journalists
ticker. Twitter overflows.
All of which delights media companies.
The Boston bombers brought
CNN one of its highest ratings in the
last ten years, an increase of 200
percent. Not since the outbreak of the
war in Iraq in April 2003 have Fox
News and CNN counted so many
viewers – despite criticism for faulty
reporting (see box).
Mediathons satisfy the human need
for drama. The public prefers narratives
that are «a relentless hybrid of
media circus, soap opera and tabloid
journalism,» Rich explains. Plainly
said: It wants violence, sex, stars,
money and crime. Broadcasters and
newspapers stir all of this up into a
pulp that unceasingly inundates the
audience.
Every Mediathon has its catchy headline.
«Boston Bombers», «The O.J.
Simpson Case», «America Under Attack»,
«The Death of Princess Diana»,
«Scandal at the White House»,
«School Massacre». If a story is too
complex it does not lend itself to
hashing into drama and is not worthy
of a Mediathon. This includes the
billion-dollar bankruptcy of the energy
giant Enron, which rang in the
end of the New Economy in 2001. Nor
1: 1991: CNN
launched the first
Mediathon with
«War in the Gulf».
2: 1992: Overnight
protagonists of
a Mediathon:
Woody Allen and
Soon-Yi Previn,
the adopted
daughter of Allen’s
partner Mia
Farrow.
3: 1997: Princess
Diana’s fatal car
crash meant
fantastic ratings
for weeks.
did the financial crisis that began in
2008 turn into a Mediathon.
The disaster on the Japanese coast in
March 2011, however, fit the bill perfectly,
despite the language barrier.
At first, the tsunami provided spectacular
images and compelling individual
human-interest stories. Following
this the accident at the
Fukushima nuclear power plant
created tension and fear around the
globe. U.S. news channel CNN succeeded
in creating the first Mediathon
in 1991, during the first Gulf
War. The desert battle for Kuwait
pushed soap operas off the air at the
time. It was CNN’s breakthrough. For
the first time ever, the news channel
achieved continuously high ratings.
CNN’s coverage of the conflict under
the caption «War in the Gulf» was a
landmark in media history, comparable
to the screening of «The Jazz
Singer», the first sound film in 1927.
And yet, huge media events as such
are nothing new. The sinking of the
Titanic was covered at length in 1912,
as were the trial against the kidnapper
of the Lindbergh baby in 1935 and
the assassination of John F. Kennedy
in 1963.
Using modern technology, CNN succeeded
in doing something new: The
Gulf War had its own logo, its own
theme music; it had stars like General
Colin Powell on the army side and
reporter Peter Arnett for the media.
But most of all, an international audience
was watching – live, thanks to
satellite technology. «The first instance
history had been shaped (and
spun, often by the military brass) on
the spot into a dramatic 24/7 TV miniseries,»
Rich wrote.
Is there money to be earned by such
Mediathons? You bet. CNN had been
waiting for ratings like those they
got for Boston for years. Twenty-five
percent more viewers tuned in
when John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed
his Cessna and died. Three weeks
after Princess Diana’s fatal accident
in 1997 TV channels still registered
a twenty percent audience increase.
Bill Clinton’s 1998 affair with intern
Monica Lewinsky was a ratings hit.
The objects of such stories - Lewinsky,
Clinton, the Boston bombers –
4: 1998: Bill Clinton’s
affair with
intern Monica
Lewinsky had political
soap opera
potential.
5: 2001: The
nonstop coverage
of the terrorist
attacks on September
11 caused
numerous false
reports.
6: 2011: In the
footsteps of the
tsunami was
the accident
at the nuclear
power plant in
Fukushima - the
Mediathon as a
serialized novel.
have no control over the coverage.
That includes U.S. filmmaker
Woody Allen. In 1992, he found
himself in the midst of a Mediathon
when he separated from his longtime
partner Mia Farrow and his
relationship with Farrow’s adopted
daughter Soon-Yi Previn was disclosed.
«I was on the cover of every
magazine, and magazines all over
the world,» Woody Allen told the
New York Times Magazine. He was
extremely vexed to suddenly find
himself the star of a Mediathon. «I
couldn’t believe the amount of interest
and size of it. From where I
sat, a non-event had spawned a
multimillion-dollar business.
Newspapers and magazines were
set in motion, television shows and
even books. Lawyers were engaged,
detectives were engaged, psychologists,
the judiciary. It was much
bigger than anything I had experienced
in show business, including
the opening of a movie and the
Academy Awards.»
It was no laughing matter. «But I
found it ironically funny. And I understood
why the media were so
interested,» Allen said. «In my case,
and in these other cases as well,
there was a juiciness to the story.
Mine had a particularly entertaining
quality to it.»
Mediathons are often criticized,
especially because speed matters
more than facts. The reporting is
often riddled with half-truths, exaggerations
and fiction - quite intentionally.
«The public is even more
fond of entertainment than it is of
information,» said publisher William
Randolph Hearst during the
Lindbergh trial. Woody Allen puts
it in a nutshell: «When the audience
is given the choice, they choose the
junk. And so the media are always
going to give them the junk.»
Every Mediathon comes to an end,
every story loses its appeal, but the
public and the media crave their
next thrill. «Drama is addictive,»
Rich wrote. «This addiction afflicts
not only consumers of our Mediathons
but also those of us who
write about them.» In other words:
journalists.
The top 12 worst false reports on the Boston bombing
Salon’s David Sirota; headline: «Let’s
2. hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a
Barack Obama cracked a sardonic joke
about this: «I admire (CNN›s) commitment to
cover all sides of a story, just in case one of them
happens to be accurate.» The US president said
this shortly after U.S. TV broadcasters,
newspapers and online journalists had outdone
each other in publishing erroneous reports
about the attack at the Boston Marathon on
April 15, 2013.
The New York Post, for example, published a
picture of a 17-year-old student and his coach.
«Feds seek these two», the headline of the
paper said – which was wide off the mark.
Neither the student nor his coach had anything
to do with the bombing. The New York Post’s
website talked about «at least a dozen dead». In
fact, three people died. Fox News reported
there had been a third explosion at a library
outside of Boston. It was a fire. Reporter John
King – a star at CNN – attracted attention in a
particularly embarrassing manner. Two days
after the bombing he reported: «An arrest has
been made. My source within Boston law
enforcement told me: We’ve got him.» This was
wrong as well. The competition simply picked it
up. The news agency AP even claimed to know
that the suspect was already on the way to the
courthouse. Hundreds of journalist promptly
rushed to the court building. But the report of
the arrest was a hoax.
1.
Hollywood director Michael Moore:
Shortly after the bombing, Moore
tweeted, «2+2.» And then replied to himself:
«Tax Day. Patriot’s Day.»
white guy.»
3.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: «It is a state holiday
in Massachusetts today, called Patriot’s
Day and, uh, who knows if that had anything at
all to do with these explosions.»
4.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell;
[Because it opposes tracing chemicals in
gunpowder] the NRA is «in the business of
helping bombers get away with their crimes.»
5.
CNN Analyst Peter Bergen: «I’m
reminded of Oklahoma City, which was a
bombing, which was initially treated as a gas
explosion. First reports are often erroneous…
We’ve also seen, for instance, right-wing
groups trying to attack the Martin Luther King
parade in Oregon in 2010.»
6.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: «Let me ask
you about domestic terrorism as a
category. Normally, domestic terrorists …
people tend to be on the far right, well that’s
not a good category, just extremists; let’s call
them that.»
7.
Huffington Post & MSNBC’s Nida
Khan; She tweeted: «We don’t know
anything yet of course, but it is Tax Day & my
first thought was all these ant-gov groups, but
who knows».
8.
The New York Times’ Nicholas
Kristof; The writer tweeted: «Explosion
is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame
on Senate Republicans for blocking aptment
(links to WaPo).»
9.
Former Obama Adviser David
Axelrod; The MSNBC contributor:
«And I’m sure what was going through the
president’s mind is — we really don’t know who
did this — it was Tax Day. Was it someone who
was pro–you know, you just don’t know.»
Esquire’s Charles Pierce; Pierce’s
10. «Holy Mother of God» article is filled
with references to Patriot’s Day, the battles at
Lexington and Concord, and Timothy
McVeigh.
Politico; in a piece on the Boston
11. bombing: «Boston Athletic Association
president Joanne Flaminio previously said that
there was ‹special significance› to the fact that
the race was 26.2 miles long and 26 people
died at Sandy Hook Elementary school.»
Jay Mohr; the actor tweeted: «What
12. bothers me most about today is that
we’re getting used 2 it. ENOUGH. 2nd
amendment must go. Violence has 2 stop.
Culture MUST change.»
14 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 15

FOCUS ON RINGIER
In this feature DOMO regularly presents the best photographs published by Ringier titles in the past quarter
1
Ringier’s best photos
of the last quarter
Persuasiveness, patience or a compelling visual concept – our photographers
had to bring at least one of these qualities to the table to create
these works. Pictures from Hungary and Switzerland made it into this
issue’s selection.
DaRRIn vanselOw Photographer
sabIne senn
Editor
It must have been particularly difficult to
1 portray this woman, who notoriously never
smiled in any of her self portraits. But Swati,
27, did an excellent impression of Frida Kahlo,
even though it was the first time that this
human resources specialist from Rolle, Vaud,
sat for a professional’s lens. l’illustré’s
weekly fashion feature casts readers as
models. «It’s a perfect opportunity to show
just how beautiful Romandy women are, and
at the same time we’re giving our readers an
unforgettable day,» says photo editor Julie
Body. She is certainly right if you ask Swati: «It
was a unique experience to wear such an
unusual look.» By the way: In her lifetime,
Mexico’s most famous woman painter caused
quite a stir with her extravagant fashion style.
See for yourself at her museum «Casa Azul» in
Mexico City - but only until January 2014. Her
husband, Diego Rivera, decreed in his will that
his wife’s wardrobe should never leave the
house. And that is how it will be, despite
requests from more than twenty museums for
a worldwide exhibition.
ZsOlt RevIcZky
Photographer
GábOR FejéR
Editor
2
«Faces» is the title of the column on the
last page of the Hungarian daily newspaper
népszabadság. It portrays people who
have distinguished themselves by special
achievements. High standards are also
demanded of the photograph illustrating the
piece. It is given a lot of space, half a page. It is
supposed to be an eye-catcher: unusual, an
invitation to the reader to pay attention to the
rather long text. Knowing he’d have to meet
these requirements, photographer Zsolt
Reviczky traveled to Tiszakanyár, a tiny village
on Hungary’s eastern border. There he was
met by György Háda, owner of Hungary’s
biggest chain of secondhand clothing stores,
Háda. He is a self-made man, a working-class
boy who made good and now calls a company
with a turnover of more than 30 million euros
his own. The fact that he founded this
company in his home town and created many
jobs makes him a local hero. «When I walked
into the factory, a forklift was just stowing
away a new delivery of clothes. At dizzying
height the bales were being put into place.
That’s when the idea for the picture hit me,»
says Zsolt Reviczky. «All I needed to do was to
convince the 30-million-euro-turnover man of
my plan.» After five minutes of powerful
persuasion György Háda agreed to let himself
be raised up on top of a bale of clothes - with
his workers looking on. His own reaction to
the photo shoot was a warm thank you when
the article appeared a week later.
RObeRt hubeR
Photographer
MaRtIn MülleR
Editor
3The Swiss are a nation of commuters,
willing to travel long distances every day
to spend their nights away from the city. This
was reason enough for sonntagsblick
magazine to investigate this phenomenon.
The magic word for the visual realization was
emotion. «When people see this photograph,
they are supposed to feel like commuters. It is
supposed to be a faithful representation of
the truth. We achieved this not by means of
traditional photo reportage but by using
photomontage and double exposure,» says
photographer Robert Huber. The result:
visualized commuting; a place that commuters
pass at different times, captured in one
and the same image. It’s worth mentioning
that even at 6 a.m. none of the commuters
gave a second glance to a camera on a tripod
and a photographer holding a remote release.
RObeRt eIkelpOth
ullI GlantZ
There is no end to his nicknames: power
4 cube, little soccer giant, power station.
Now that he’s donned a traditional Bavarian
costume crafted from stag and chamois
Photographer
Editor
leather for Sport, a supplement of schweizer
Illustrierte, Swiss soccer star Xherdan
Shaqiri, who currently plays for Bayern
Munich, can visually pass as a Bavarian. Fancy
footwork meets fabulous folklore: photographer
Robert Eikelpoth and his team pulled out
all the stops for this production in a disused
factory on Munich’s Papin street. «Our stylist
combed lots of old shops for traditional
costumes and even borrowed clothing,
furniture and accessories from a costume
museum,» says Ulli Glantz, head photo editor.
They wound up using nothing but original
parts for the shoot, and it was worth it.
«Shaq» felt at ease in the 5,000-euro
lederhosen outfit: «I’d never have thought I’d
look so good in these things.» The shoot was
completed within four hours. «It’s rather
exceptional for a soccer player in his league to
give up so much of his time,» says Glantz. Of
course, none of the photo crew left the set
without a personally signed autograph card.
natacha salaMIn Photographer
DenIse ZuRkIRch
Editor
5Did you know that there are as many as
15,000 species of fuchsias in the world?
No? Neither did photographer Natacha
Salamin: «Nor did I expect having to arrange
more than one hundred fuchsia plants in front
of this farmhouse for our lead picture.»
Commissions like this one for landliebe
magazine require a lot of care and attention to
detail. It is no accident that the front door is
open – the house has to give the impression of
being lived in. The plants are arranged
according to their needs. The chicken was
repeatedly lured across the courtyard with
zoologically correct clucking sounds and
chicken feed. Max, the canine star, had to
contend with his naps being interrupted
several times, only to be shifted by a few
inches. «A photograph like this requires a
full day’s work. But whenever the picture ends
up looking as though this were the natural
state of things, I have achieved my goal as a
photographer.»
16 | DOMO – June 2013
DOMO – June 2013 | 17

FOCUS ON RINGIER
In this feature DOMO regularly presents the best photographs published by Ringier titles in the past quarter
2 4 5
3

interview
Philipp Riederle
«If you want to get us, we first have to
become your fans»
To the Internet crowd he is a
star, his podcast «Mein iPhone
und ich» (My iPhone and I) is
legendary. Philipp Riederle
explains what makes the digital
generation tick and why he
would only use a newspaper
to wrap fish.
Interview: Bettina Bono
Photos: Alescha Birkenholz
Their brand of provocation is
neither Rock ‘n’ Roll nor rebellion
but the outgrowing of old software.
After all, they are the first
generation to come of age in a completely
different world of media, a
world in which many areas of life
are about to undergo a sea of
change. Philipp Riederle is one of
them. He embodies digital and social
networking with every fiber of
his being and has turned it into a
business. At eighteen he is considered
Germany’s youngest management
consultant. He launched his
first podcast (My iPhone and I) at the
age of fourteen. It features weekly
reports on new developments for
Apple’s smartphone from his studio,
which occupies the basement of his
grandfather’s house. At fifteen he
founded his own company, Phipz
Media. Since then he has been advising
companies and showing
them what marketing strategies to
apply in order to get the digital natives’
attention for their products and
content.
Philipp Riederle is a podcaster, entrepreneur,
keynote speaker, college
student and – as of recently - an author.
Mr. Riederle, please enlighten me. In
a legendary TV ad for a German home
loan bank a little girl says: «Daddy,
when I grow up I want to be a square
like you.» Is this a fact? Do digital natives
want to be square? a
18 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 19

•
interview
a Philipp Riederle: Absolutely. Our
generation, like no other before it,
feels that it is of crucial importance
to have solid personal relationships.
We don’t want to spend day and
night at the mercy of the world with
all its contacts, its pornography, its
Facebooks, its check-this-outcheck-that-out,
its revelations of the
last mysteries of mankind. We want
to come home at night and feel secure.
So you have become the people your
parents always warned you against?
Building-society investors, yes. We
want a house, a garden and a dog; to
go for walks in the evenings and have
dinner together. We want a place that
doesn’t just belong to us, but that we
belong to – a home, at the end of the
day.
The antithesis of the big, confusing
world of the web that you grew up
in. How were you able to survive this
overabundance of millions of websites,
blogs, forums and an average of
four hundred Facebook friends without
suffering permanent damage?
I had to learn to choose – until it
became my second nature to do so.
You know, as a result of this overabundance
young people’s values
have changed. At the top of their list
are self-determination, self-confidence
and self-realization. That
actually provides a pretty strong
basis. But one thing remains: you
have to recognize what’s relevant.
Everyone needs to find his or her
own thing.
So you’re not searching, you′re finding?
That is one of those key phrases that
accurately describes my generation.
As you’ve said, we are faced with
absolute overabundance with regard
to media. We have to learn to restrain
ourselves and to choose. Selection is
one of the essential jobs of the media.
If they want to win over our generation,
the kind of choices they offer us
will be of enormous relevance.
But many members of your generation
refuse to be dictated to by anyone.
They have their own ideas about
what’s relevant to them.
That’s exactly why media companies
have to position themselves in
such a way that they can offer tailormade
news and topics for different
types of people: sober reporting, a
personal narrative or an op-ed piece
that puts the matter into perspective.
We, the digital natives, want
media to show us a clearly recognizable
profile.
Thanks to digital media your generation
has a lot of knowledge, but is it
capable of understanding the knowledge
it accumulates?
True: we have it easier to acquire
knowledge than other generations
before us. We also have the means to
read up on a subject and come to
grips with it. The prerequisite, however,
is the same as it used to be: a
solid foundation in terms of a canon
of knowledge based on a good general
education. If we are equipped
with that then, yes, reading up on
topics and understanding them comes
as naturally to us as to no other
generation before us.
On the other hand, education isn′t
all you′re getting from the Internet.
Many children see their first porn
when they’re eleven, killer games
when they’re thirteen.
These figures are scary. The problem
is that the generation raising these
children and having to guide them
through their lives doesn’t really
know enough about these media to
protect their kids from the inherent
risks. As a result, children are let
loose on digital media without being
adequately prepared.
Computers and smartphones are taking
over from Lego and so on. The
technical term for this is age compression,
meaning that children are supposedly
growing up faster and faster.
I think that various influences are
responsible for the earlier onset of
•
1: Philipp Riederle‘s
grandfather
taught him the
basics of electrical
technology, so at
the age of eight
he built his own
circuits and played
at being a TV host.
Philipp Riederle
lives with his family
in Burgau,
Germany. He is
a graduate from
Dossenberg-Gymnasium
and has a
girlfriend – «whom
I didn’t meet on
the Internet.»
2: In April 2008 he
launched his own
podcast; at first
it was produced
rather clumsily
from his own bedroom,
sometimes
with vacuumcleaner
noise in
the background
– later on it came
from his own little
recording studio
in a former party
room in the basement.
3: Philipp Riederle
lectures on his
favorite subjects
– social media and
Generation Y – at
conventions, media
conferences
and international
symposiums.
natural puberty nowadays. But the
fact that children get in touch with
subject matters of the adult world
does not mean that they are actually
grown up. They first have to develop
their personality and to achieve maturity
like all adolescents before
them.
It is a fact, however, that digital communication
takes up a lot of time, one
of the best examples being Facebook.
This time is taken away from real life
and growing up.
Absolutely. Whenever I catch myself
thinking about just how much
time I spend in the digital world I’m
always shocked at myself. Hence
my appeal to everybody dealing
with children: Teach these kids to
deal with media! Children need to
know how to make use of digital
media but they also have to learn
which things they’d do better getting
from the real world. They need
to realize that this is still where life
takes place.
The digital hype has been on the wane
since 2011. Is this partly due to the insight
that the digital world cannot replace
real life?
I am convinced of it. Sooner or later
everything comes back to a healthy
sense of moderation. American college
students – who were among the
first users of Facebook – are now only
using the platform for quick exchanges.
Still, is it wishful thinking on behalf of
publishing houses to hope that they′d
ever pick up a printed newspaper and
read it?
To read news that is literally
yesterday’s? Never! I can only speak
for myself, of course, but I’ve never
really understood how to read a
newspaper. If I want to leaf through
it on the train I need a whole compartment
to myself and at the breakfast
table either the paper gets in the
way of the coffee cup or vice versa. I
prefer to read digitally, because it is
significantly more practical. In ad-
1 2 3
dition, I need to be able to mark a
text passage or save it in order to use
it again later; or to look for catchwords,
links to an article and maybe
look at the comments on it. All of
which speaks in favor of digital reading.
What kind of online offerings are you
prepared to pay for?
The weekly newspaper «Die Zeit»
offers a brilliant digital edition. As a
weekly it deals with issues in a more
in-depth way and from a distance
that is only possible in hindsight – as
opposed to the daily newspapers. I
think their long feature articles are
great. They provide me with intense
insight into a topic. The audio pieces
are just fantastic. Each issue offers
me up to twenty professionally recorded
audio files. Whether I’m on the
bus, on the train or jogging I can listen
to the Zeit’s most important articles
on my iPhone. This service really
sets them apart from the huge
grey majority.
Please give me an overview of what
you read during the course of a day.
I read up on the latest news of the
day on the big online portals of
Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung; I
have a digital subscription to Die
Zeit and Der Spiegel even though
you only get a student’s discount for
the print editions. In addition, I
regularly check up things in the
Newsreader. Of course I keep an eye
on Twitter and Facebook. I am also
interested in the local section of our
regional newspaper, which I read
online.
Is there no glossy magazine that you
enjoy so much that you′d like to hold
it in your hands?
I like «Cicero» as well as «brand eins».
Of course it is much easier to quickly
buy such a magazine at the train
station’s newsstand instead of having
to download the issue via the
slow Internet connection on your cell
phone. But it isn’t practical. It’s annoying
having to carry an extra ten
In his book «Wer
wir sind und was
wir wollen» (Who
we are and what
we want) Philipp
Riederle gives an
account of the
point of view of
today’s web-savvy
youth. Without
needing to log
in or submit a
password his readers
learn what the
business of ideas
might look like in
the future. «By the
way, while I was
working on this
book I once again
came to feel that
this is a medium I
can appreciate.»
Or, to put it differently:
«like».
pounds of print products along with
my usual luggage.
What do you call «glossy» among online
publications?
When apps don’t merely provide a
digital equivalent of the print edition
but give me added value. What also
matters are the little details that
make reading easy: special options
for saving and highlighting. Also, the
articles need to be optimized for each
type of reading device, and I think it’s
important for them to have a way to
archive articles. Videos and audio
files are great.
Let′s get back again to the little house
with a garden. According to researchers
and youth studies the house
with a garden matters to young people
because they want to preserve the
wealth of their parents in this uncertain
world.
It’s pretty much along those lines. We
are looking for a foundation; we want
to put down roots. These are our basic
human values and needs. That’s
the reason why magazines like
«Landlust» - in Switzerland it’s called
«LandLiebe» - are so successful. Regional
crime series on TV are booming,
too. Our place in the world is
not an e-mail address or a Facebook
account. It’s a little house with a picket
fence.
20 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 21

TRIBUTE
Ringier Publishing, Hello.
What would Ringier be without its telephone operators?
A company without calling cards! The clients’
first contact with a company is still of crucial importance
– even though the Internet and e-mails are gradually
drowning out those charming voices. A tribute by
Helmut-Maria Glogger.
Photos: Raja Läubli, Zoran Loncarevic, Vlad Chirea, Pavel Hofman
What can I do? I’m working
abroad; the Internet isn’t working
and my iPhone can’t find a signal.
All that remains is a ramshackle pay
phone. I call +41 44 259 62 62, and a
familiar voice answers: «Ringier
Publishing, Cornelia Kugler». Now I
know that my 1,200th column headed
«Glogger e-mails...» will reach the
desk of Blick am Abend’s editor-inchief
Peter Röthlisberger on time by
10.30 a.m.
What would companies do without
their telephone operators? Words like
«no» or «need» are not part of their
vocabulary. They pick up the phone
after the third ring, at the latest; they
carefully register complaints and
accept justified criticism with courtesy
and thanks. Operating the
switchboard used to be a menial task,
but nowadays talking on the telephone
is considered a skill that requires
proper training. A capable
answering service is crucial to any
company’s image. We journalists
know that the operators have our
backs, too. Only now that people can
reach us directly via e-mail or website
comments can we appreciate
how many unfriendly remarks the
operators used to hear on our behalf.
«Put me through to your publisher,
Michael Ringier, at once!» is one of
customers’ comparatively harmless
requests.
The golden age of the switchboard
operator as was depicted on the silver
screen never really existed. The
women did their job using hand
cranks, plugs and earphones, as we
can still see in movie classics like
«Grand Hotel». In the French «Maigret»
series they would connect
people in Paris luxury hotels as well
as at police headquarters on the Quai
des Orfèvres, and say things in dulcet
tones like: «Monsieur le directeur,
your call is coming through
– from London!» In real life their job
was not quite so sweet. Even at the
time, switchboard operators had to
meet high standards. A good education,
impeccable manners and
knowledge of several languages
were indispensable. In addition, the
ladies had to be young, have a good
background, and be single. A husband,
let alone a family, would have
distracted from their duties. Back
then, the Swiss Postal Service paid
for their training, and their salary
allowed the young ladies to enjoy
independence.
For some, the job at the switchboard
did in fact launch a Hollywood-style
career. Elisabeth Mohn was born 71
years ago in Widenbrück, Germany.
Her colleagues at the switchboard in
nearby Gütersloh called her «Liz».
Today, Liz Mohn sits on the board of
one of the world’s biggest media
groups, Bertelsmann. OK, so Liz
Mohn didn’t get to where she is today
just by gracefully saying: «Good
morning, Bertelsmann Publishing
Headquarters in Gütersloh.» She was
also the mistress and later the wife of
Bertelsmann patriarch Reinhard
Mohn (1921 – 2009), who in the fifth
generation transformed the mediumsized
company into one of the biggest
media conglomerates in the world.
Then again, Johanna Quandt wasn’t
born a billionaire, either. She used to
be the switchboard operator of industrial
tycoon Herbert Quandt.
Cornelia Kugler is the last lady to
operate the telephone at Ringier’s
Zurich headquarters on Dufourstrasse.
She speaks fluent English
and French and answers up to 300
phone calls per day. She always remains
unruffled, witty and calm. She
also laughs a lot – about herself,
about us – and she is stoically nice to
everyone, even to callers who are
freaking out because last Saturday’s
lottery numbers have been reprinted
in the current issue of SonntagsBlick.
Good telephone operators remain
invaluable to this day. Who else
would get us out of all our messes in
the future? So if my column should
ever go missing, we will know: Cornelia
Kugler was briefly away from
her desk on the ground floor.
PETRU VASILE,
ROMANIA
«Maybe our phone
lines are to blame,
or our readers are
hard of hearing,
but I often get
asked for our
lottery numbers
and then have to
shout them into
the receiver. Another
oddity is that
Romanians, who
are considered to
be skeptics, often
begin by asking:
Is this really Ringier?»
VALENTINA MILI, SERBIA
«Here’s what strikes me again and again:
When I ask our readers where they’re
calling from, they never tell me which
town. They always say: my house or my
apartment.»
MARIANA BIELIKOVÁ, SLOVAKIA
«People mostly want to know whether
they are the lucky winners of some competition.
One gentleman was irritating
because he wanted to meet me right
away. He thought I was the lady from ‹the
Lonely Hearts› section in Nový Čas.»
CORNELIA KUGLER, SWITZERLAND
«One caller asked me if I had liked his
present. When I asked about the nature
of the gift, it turned out to be a mix-up.
The man had tried to ensure preferential
treatment and a lower tax bill by sending
a bottle of expensive perfume to a female
revenue officer. I had to promise him
on my word of honor never to pass his
story on to Blick’s editorial team.»
DANIELA MAČUROVÁ,
CZECH REPUBLIC
«Most callers ask for back issues of Blesk.
One question really baffled me though:
Where can I find the bread? Our building
is in fact right next to a big supermarket
and the bread aisle is a bit hard to find.»
22 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 23

inhouse
On this page, DOMO reports regularly on products and teams from the world of Ringier.
The newsroom’s baby is all grown-up
On June 2, 2008, Blick am Abend was born. Since
then, on weekdays after 4 p.m., commuter trains in
many parts of Switzerland have taken on the color
blackberry. The formula for success: Take the day’s
reports and turn them into gossip-worthy items. The
result: a fleet-footed tabloid.
Blick am Abend
Evening paper
Published five days a week
Circulation: 320,000
Editorial team: 170 (Newsroom)
The paper has successfully positioned itself in
the market within five years and more than
doubled its readership (633,000)
Over the past five years Blick am Abend has
become a more serious newspaper with more
items on economic and political issues and the
texts growing longer.
For any issue
of Blick am
Abend 22
editors, 4
layout artists
and 3 photo
editors are on
the job. Florian
Fels (photo, on
the left) has
been CEO
Publishing
since March
2013. The
original
editor-in-chief,
Peter
Röthlisberger,
is still in office
(second row
from the front,
fourth from
left). What is
his wish for his
paper’s
birthday? «Its
own website!»
www.blick.ch/blickamabend/epaper
24 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 25

RINGIER MEETS THE STARS
Appointment w ith
an Immortal
In the presence of
Roger Federer
even journalists turn
into groupies.
This is a story of a
star that yearns
for normality and
protects his privacy
from the press.
Text: Christian Bürge
Photo: Oliver Mark/Agentur Focus
The poor thing is about to rub her
cheek on the sleeve of his excruciatingly
expensive Armani suit and
purr like a kitten. The young woman
is close to twenty-five and working
as a life-style journalist for a Belgian
magazine, but that seems to have
slipped her mind. She laughs too
loud, flailing her arms about even
when nothing was funny and she is
the only thing that's laughable. It’s
not the champagne that has her befuddled.
It’s a man that has her going
gaga in a blissful trance of yearning:
Roger Federer, winner of 17 Grand-
Slam tournaments, multimillionaire
and the star with the biggest media
presence on the planet. He smiles,
displaying an interest as if he
couldn’t think of a better place to be
or a better person to talk to. It is late
November 2012 at Dubai's One & Only
Royal Mirage Resort where the smart
sportsman demonstrates why champagne
house Moët & Chandon has
signed him as a brand ambassador,
how everyone is swept away and
seeks to be close to him. Five minutes
later he offers her friendly thanks for
the conversation, shakes her hand,
takes a step to the right and says: «Hi,
how are ya?» We talk about flights,
about our country, about Dubai,
about his daughters, who are so looking
forward to Christmas, about my
son, who is about to start walking.
We talk about intimacy and distance
between athletes and journalists.
About the fact that he doesn’t want
any artificial barriers between himself
and sports journalists. «We know
each other. We’re all sportspeople,»
he says. I nod. The small talk is very
easy-going.
Roger Federer appreciates being able
to speak Swiss German every now
and then, encountering familiar
faces, people who’ve been following
him around the globe and interviewed
him back when he was seventeen
and a pimply teenager, people
who have attended hundreds of his
press conferences, even at two or four
o'clock in the morning, with Roger in
a good mood or grumpy. He makes
you feel as though you were his
equal, even if it’s just an illusion, as
we are both well aware.
Winning beats losing
Throughout his career Federer has
always been a perfect source for stories,
even behind the scenes. When
there is really nothing to say he still
manages to find some clever approach.
He rarely struggles for words
as he did after losing in the 2008
Wimbledon finals, when he wasn’t so
much sitting in his chair as slumped
in it, following that worst of defeats
inflicted by Rafael Nadal. Federer
was staring into space, going on
about disaster and saying, «I am destroyed.»
For once he appeared not
to give a damn about the journalists’
questions, spitefully adding: «Write
whatever you want.» Usually he is
second to none when it comes to
speaking charmingly and at length.
But then, he too, is much better at
winning than at losing. He holds
press conferences in English, French
and Swiss German. After serving the
print journalists he will turn to radio
stations and TV channels like CNN,
ESPN and Al Jazeera.
Most journalists are allowed three
questions, some only one. Direct access
to him is granted only to his
entourage and possibly to the CEOs
of his sponsors. Journalists, however,
– as is the rule when it comes to top
tennis players – have to stand in line
at his manager’s office. They put
down their name and wait for several
weeks, sometimes months.
When the stars are in their favor they
will eventually get an appointment.
His cellphone number is off-limits.
Compared to this, the working conditions
imposed on the media by Switzerland's
top soccer or hockey players
resemble those of a petting zoo.
So what is normal?
June 2009 brings one of these exclusive
encounters on the terrace of the
Holmes Place gym in Oberrieden,
near Zurich. A few days earlier, Federer
had won the French Open for
the first time. He talks about going to
the bakery for fresh rolls, about train
connections in the region north of
Zurich – things that make him accessible.
Is this a stratagem? More likely,
it is an attempt to become more
grounded in this strangely artificial
world of the tennis tour.
He talks about how journalists and
acquaintances start acting weird in
his presence. «They get uptight, talk
differently or just stare.» He would
like to be «treated normally». But
what is so normal about this career,
this surreal rise to fame, that people
could just get back to business as
usual? Those who are not his close
friends can only try to deny this reality:
a superstar in the presence of a
nobody, a millionaire in the presence
of a poor devil, an immortal in the
presence of a mortal. Maintaining
the balance is tough enough for journalists.
Sooner or later almost everyone
gives in to temptation and has
him sign a t-shirt or a tennis ball for
their best friend or godchild. Or they
have souvenir photos taken behind
closed doors. What would meet with
incomprehension relative to any
Super League soccer player is silently
accepted in the case of Roger
Federer. The journalistic code of
conduct is ignored in the face of this
exceptional prodigy. Someday, this
unreal story will have an end and we
will want something that remains, a
piece of evidence that proves: I was
there. I was with him.
26 | DOMO – June 2013 DOMO – June 2013 | 27

Michael ringier
Please send your questions to: domo@ringier.com
talk
Employee questions
Art: Igor Kravarik
M
artin Sorrell is smart, clever, self-aggrandizing and curt. His words carry
weight. The boss of the world’s largest advertising group, WPP, that will
deploy 73 billion dollars in advertising money this year, has urged the
advertising industry to slash their print advertising budgets. «We are still
investing twenty percent in print even though consumers only spend
seven to ten percent of their time reading newspapers and magazines. That has to change,»
he rumbled in The Guardian in late April. He also predicted that by the end of 2014 Google
would supplant Rupert Murdoch’s media empire at the top of WPP’s client list.
Our free daily Blick am Abend provided a smidgen of comfort, also at the end of April: «3.9
million Swiss people read a newspaper every day, either in print or digitally, but only
334,000 get their information exclusively throu’gh online portals,» the paper quoted an
analysis by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of the figures compiled by Swiss advertising media
research company WEMF.
More encouragement for print’s defenders is coming from Zurich – from 10- to 12-year-old
pupils, in fact. Every year, the city’s school board organizes a course in which children
under 12 create a newspaper called FlipFlop. As with any newspaper, not every article
makes it into the issue. «When I suggest the children publish some of their articles online
they are deeply disappointed,» says the journalist supervising the course. «They miss the
magic of having their articles exist on paper 15,000-fold.» Is online journalism uncool
with our youngest kids?
There is yet another cause for hope. Already last year, 60 percent of the shareholders voted
against Sir Martin’s 20-million-dollar salary package, and once again, resistance is growing.
If he does not agree to a cut of over 10 million dollars in this year’s salary package,
several shareholders are threatening to work towards his expulsion. Saint Martin was a 4 th
century ascetic; Sir Martin prefers things a bit more opulent. I’m hoping that the more
humble of the two Martins was the wiser prophet.
Why has the introduction
of the paywall for blick.ch
been postponed?
Florian Fels, CEO Publishing Ringier
AG: The watershed decision that
we will in the future no longer
offer all content on blick.ch for
free has been made, but it is also
clear that we want to take our
time with this change. There are
four reasons for this: First of all,
the technological implementation
of a paywall is a complex matter;
secondly, we are closely observing
how the diverse paywall
systems for various publications
are working in different markets;
thirdly, the $64,000 dollar
question remains: what are
readers willing to pay for on the
Internet? And fourthly, we are
currently testing a model that
allows us to reward users who are
willing to pay for a digital
subscription by offering them a
veritable service package that
goes way beyond conventional
journalism. Our strategy is aiming
for a freemium version that would
still give non-paying users access
to between seventy and eighty
percent of the content. Basically,
it seems obvious to us that you
should not give away online what
you are selling on paper.
The marketing of newspapers and
magazines in Switzerland was
merged as of May 1. What are you
hoping to achieve as a result of this
measure?
Thomas Passen, Head of Sales and
Marketing: Our partners and
clients had been expressing their
desire for simplified processes
and unified final discounts for
some time. After merging the
marketing of magazines for
German-speaking and Frenchspeaking
Switzerland in the fall
of 2012, this was the next logical
step. The new sales organization
in Zurich under the name of
Ringier Publishing Media allows
us to react faster to the market’s
«We are now focusing
on the most
promising online
platforms.»
Robin Lingg
Head of Business
Development
requirements and needs.
Although the traditional advertising
business has come under
pressure, there are still plenty of
opportunities to offer tailor-made
and cross-media communications
solutions. That is the
purpose of the Ringier Atelier
department, which we created
within the new unit.
How does our current engagement
in Africa, which has everyone
talking, present itself?
Robin Lingg, Head of Business
Development: Within Africa at
this time, Ringier is operatively
active in Kenya, Nigeria and
Ghana. Over the last two years we
have tested 15 different digital
projects in fields that we are well
versed in: marketplaces, e-commerce
and content. We are now
focusing on the most promising
online platforms and the
expansion of our activities. Our
primary goal is to start by
building up strong brands of our
own with the biggest possible
customer base or range, respectively.
If we want to gain an
advantage over other international
investors (Naspers, Rocket
Internet, etc.), we’ll have to move
fast.
DOMO – June 2013 | 29

ANNIVERSARY
10 YEARS:
Schlatter Lea, Ringier AG.
Guillaume Michel, Ringier
Romandy. Tauxe Martelli
Chantal, Ringier Romandy. Saiu
Florian, Ringier Romania. Dinca
Mihaela Hermina, Ringier
Romania. Nicolae Dumitru,
Ringier Romania. Nitu Barbu,
Ringier Romania. Tudorache
Mariana, Ringier Romania.
Micsunescu Marinela, Ringier
Romania. Tiriblecea Lacramioara,
Ringier Romania. Schimon
Petr, RASMAG. Szepessy Ilona,
Ringier Hungary. Barna Attila,
Ringier Hungary. Gaál Ildikó
Krisztina, Ringier Hungary.
20 YEARS:
Keller Alois, Ringier Print. Kägi
Praxedis, Ringier AG. Kutschera
Thomas, Ringier AG. Martin
Patricia, Ringier Romandy. Doležal
Jiří, RASMAG. Hanzlová Růžena,
RASMAG. Homonický Aleš,
RASMAG. Novák Jiří, RASMAG.
Šajtar Jaroslav, RASMAG. Šibík
Jan, RASMAG. Ženková Iva,
RASMAG. Thang Thi Bich Son,
Ringier Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Sen
Hoa, Ringier Vietnam.
25 YEARS:
Burghart Christina, Ringier Print.
Martenet Didier, Ringier
Romandy. Eberhard Patrick,
Ringier AG. Huwiler Irene, Ringier
AG. Huwiler Roland, Ringier AG.
30 YEARS:
Dubach Robert, Ringier Print.
35 YEARS:
Fellmann Berta, Ringier Print.
Burri Kurt, Ringier Print.
Flecklin Anton, Ringier Print.
Cattuzzo Aldo, Ringier AG.
RETIREMENTS:
Keller Alois, Ringier Print.
Bürgisser Lisbeth, Ringier Print.
Jossi Hansruedi, Ringier Print.
Bugini Myrta, Ringier AG.
Oetterli Rainer, Ringier AG.
Cattuzzo Aldo, Ringier AG.
Vollenweider Heinz, Ringier AG.
Leuthold Sonja, Ringier AG.
Gulyásné Both Erzsébet, Ringier
Hungary. Ruckenbauer Kata,
Ringier Hungary.
DEATHS:
Riemerschmid Edith, 13.1.2013
Steiner Anna Maria, 16.1.2013
Von Büren Maxie, 13.2.2013
Hintermann Edwin, 22.2.2013
Wildi Max, 24.2.2013
Suppiger Josef, 24.3.2013
Staub Fritz, 1.4.2013
30 | DOMO – June 2013
Bye-bye, Miss Bodoni
The scandal surrounding Thomas Borer, Switzerland’s
ambassador to Germany, in 2003 cost
Myrta Bugini a lot of sleep, as did Ringier’s centenary.
Upon recently taking early retirement,
Myrta Bugini said: «No two days were alike.»
The most exciting time in her
professional life began at Easter
2003, when one of Switzerland’s
most colorful press scandals was
uncovered. «For weeks we were
intensely involved with the Borer
case», says Myrta Bugini, 59. She
was in charge of communications
at the time. Fridolin Luchsinger
was Ringier’s press officer.
There were some unforgettable
encounters, such as the one with
German politician Joschka Fischer:
«At the nearby Hotel Eden au
Lac I briefed him about the details
of the Ringier Forum, where he
was to give a speech. We had a
marvelous time talking to each
other.» Ms. Bugini also looks back
fondly on her successful collaboration
with colleagues from the
Ringier Group in the planning and
realization of the festivities for the
Ringier centenary in 2008. It’s
moments and exchanges like
these that she will miss, she says.
The entire Ringier network did her
a world of good. She found her job
inspiring and challenging.
Myrta Bugini had always been
determined to join Ringier, this
growing, diverse enterprise in the
media business. Following her
studies at a commercial college and
various language courses abroad
she focused on training in public
relations. In 1989, Myrta Bugini
changed jobs, moving from the
Farner PR agency to Ringier Print.
At first she worked in Zofingen as
an assistant in the marketing and
communications department. She
vividly remembers her first assignment
in the Ringier Information/
The annual report 2012 has been delivered. Now she can go sailing.
Perfectionist
with
style.
For
Myrta
Bugini
communication
always
meant
building
bridges.
PR department at the Pressehaus
in Zurich in September 1994. «I was
given five different CI/CD brochures
to proofread before giving
the go-ahead for printing.» The
corporate typeface at the time was
Bodoni, which earned Ms Bugini
her nickname «Miss Bodoni».
Myrta Bugini coordinated 16 editions
of the annual report that
were designed by artists. «For me,
the heaviest edition was also the
most beautiful.» The annual report
for the business year 2007
weighed more than eight pounds
and was illustrated by the Swiss
artists Fischli/Weiss. Her favorites
among Ringier’s publications are
LandLiebe and DADI. She will also
remain a faithful reader of the
SonntagsBlick.
Myrta Bugini retired in May. She
will now have more time to devote
to her hobbies. A first sailing trip
is already booked, as is a course
in outdoor botany in the Grisons.
Her alarm clock will remain silent.
«I never wear a watch, and I’ve
been getting up without an alarm
clock for years.» B. B.
Editor’s
Choice
by Marc Walder
Are you an avid reader?
Ready for something new?
Marc Walder tells you
which books he has been
reading and why they
fascinate him.
MALCOLM GLADWELL
THE TIPPING POINT
If you fold a piece
of paper 50 times
over, the resulting
pile will correspond
to the distance
between
the earth and the
sun. How come?
Read this book. Gladwell points out
how easily we can change the
world by trivial little interventions.
Beware: This is not a book for
people who like boundaries.
ISBN 978-0-349-11446-0
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
SHERYL SANDBERG
LEAN IN – WOMEN, WORK,
AND THE WILL TO LEAD
Ringier employs
more women
than men in its
core areas and
supporting staff.
Even our management
echelons
include a respectable ratio of
women. The topic of women in
the workplace is of paramount
importance to the Ringier family
and matters a lot to me as CEO.
Sheryl Sandberg has written an
intelligent discussion of this issue.
ISBN 978-0-385-34994-9
Publisher: Random House, N.Y.
CHRISTENSEN, CLAYTON M.
THE INNOVATOR’S DILEMMA
There are many
reasons why
companies fail. It
is ironic, however,
if they do so
despite having
done everything
right. They lose
their position as market leaders
due to groundbreaking changes
in technology or market structures.
The solution: invest in the
future and reinvent yourself.
ISBN 978-0-06-206024-2
Publisher: HarperCollins UK