Der Spiegel Flirts with the Anglophone World

International Herald Tribune – May 18, 2005

Andreas Tzortzis

 

 

HAMBURG As editor in chief of Der Spiegel, Stefan Aust has an automatic entrée when he travels abroad. The people he meets respect the German magazine's reputation for aggressive investigative reporting and as a leading journal of opinion.

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There is only one problem, they tell him. They cannot read it.

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"There are more people who know what Spiegel is than can read Spiegel," he said. "Our problem is the language."

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Beginning next week, that will change - at least for one issue.

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"The Germans," a 240-page Spiegel special dedicated to introducing modern Germany to the rest of the world - at least the anglophone world - will hit newsstands this month from Berlin to New York to Bangkok in time for the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

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The first English edition will feature articles ranging from the changing German-American relationship to the problems with the country's aging population to the revival in the German rock music scene.

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Aust likes to call it a "modest offering" - an initial flirtation, which the magazine hopes will become a full-blown love affair - with the English-language print market. The idea, he said, is not to challenge the big news magazines like Time or The Economist, but to maybe fill a niche at a time when readers are looking for another viewpoint on major issues.

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"I think the role of Germany has been changing during the last years," Aust said during an interview in his corner office overlooking Hamburg's shipyards. "A lot of people are interested in what is happening in Germany, how Germans see themselves and how they see the world altogether."

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But the way to those readers is already littered with the discarded attempts of other German publications to crack the English-language market. The failure of daily English supplements by major dailies like Die Welt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - which continues to produce a weekly supplement in the International Herald Tribune - provide cautionary tales to Spiegel's venture.

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"It is extremely difficult to get into the market because of the Anglo-Saxon dominance," said Bettina Peters, a former German journalist who is director of programs at the European Journalism Center in Maastricht, Netherlands.

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More practically, she said, there is the question of whether Spiegel's colorful but meandering prose would translate well into English.

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"The Spiegel reader is a German reader who has the time to read it," Peters said. "That style doesn't translate."

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To address some of these issues, the magazine last autumn started an English version of its successful Web site. The site, a mix of adaptations of Spiegel magazine content, articles from the German site and original reporting by the three-member staff of American journalists, is considered a sort of test run.

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"Many people in the management of Spiegel were skeptical whether this was feasible or not," said Mathias von Blumencron, a former Spiegel U.S. correspondent and now an editor of both German and English Spiegel Online (www.spiegel.de).

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"We thought, 'Why not start in online, and gather experiences, and see how much of a voice we can develop and how it is accepted in the Anglo-Saxon world?"' he said.

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The English-language site gets an average of 1.5 million hits a month, von Blumencron said, and up to 70 percent of the readership is outside Germany - mostly in the United States. The site's free newsletter has picked up 6,000 subscribers since starting in October.

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The modest budget of less than €500,000, or $646,000, does not allow for much advertising, so Spiegel Online English relies on content swaps with Salon.com and The New York Times.

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"It's a small amount, but we see it as the best-invested market research money for the English-speaking market," von Blumencron said.

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Reader reaction to the online content also gives Spiegel editors an idea of what sort of articles could work in a print edition, Aust said. Along with news and light culture fare, the site balances left-leaning criticism with more centered commentary.

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A column by Claus Christian Malzahn, a popular columnist for the online magazine, positing that President George W. Bush's push for democracy in the Middle East might prove to be as prophetic as President Ronald Reagan's call in Berlin to "tear down this wall," was quoted in "all the major U.S. papers," von Blumencron said.

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"The Germans" will stay true to Der Spiegel's Washington-skeptical viewpoint. One article documents Germany's hardships with the United States over the years and its transformation from a country reliant on America to one more independent and willing to take a role as an international player.

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The 155,000 copies printed will be completely paid for by about 16 pages of ads.

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Despite the fact that Aust has pushed for an English-language Der Spiegel for years, he said that any talk of future partnerships and plans for a regular edition is premature.

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"We'll try this and, if it works, we'll think about another one," he said.