Satirical magazine Nebelspalter launches online portal under Somm
A new era began at the satirical magazine Nebelspalter on Thursday. Under its new editor-in-chief Markus Somm, the world's oldest satirical magazine still in existence launched its online portal. The print edition remains unchanged for the time being.
The Nebelspalter under Winterthur's Klarsicht will adopt a clear civic stance - with a "boundless intellectual generosity toward the dissident," Somm explained in an interview on the relaunch with Persoenlich.com.
He wants to successfully combine satire and serious content, like his role model, the Canard enchaîné in Paris. "Non-satirical contributions will also be with us, and not in short supply," says the former editor-in-chief and publisher of the Basler Zeitung BaZ in an interview with Radio SRF 4 News in early December.
In just four months, a new medium has been created that will move, entertain and enlighten Switzerland, Somm wrote on Thursday about the relaunch. The first online edition includes, among other things, a story about Switzerland voting against the EU and with the Anglo-Saxons in the election of the new secretary-general of the OECD and choosing the Australian demolition candidate Mathias Cormann.
Cancel culture as an "extreme opportunity
The new co-owner and editor-in-chief sees the main journalistic competition in the "boring, conformist, one-sided, left-liberal and left-wing mainstream" that prevails in almost all editorial offices in Switzerland. Too many journalists, he says, are infected by a kind of "plague of laziness of thought" that leaves them functioning only as scaredy-cats and structural conservatives.
If a certain tendency toward censorship is spreading in social discourse, then that is an "extreme opportunity" for satirists, Somm said in the radio interview. He wants to Nebelspalter as a third civic medium alongside the NZZ and the Weltwoche establish. The subscription price for one month is 16 francs.
However, he also speaks of a "suicide mission. He does not rule out the possibility that Nebelspalter may no longer exist in five years. That was also the reason why he wanted to acquire the magazine at all costs: "That forces us to be optimistic and to achieve top performance.
Somm wants to concentrate first on the online edition in Zurich. He is relying on a subscription model, as he announced on the radio last December. The print edition will continue more or less unchanged for the time being and will be produced in Horn TG.
In the long term only in Zurich
However, Somm would like to merge the two editorial offices much faster than originally planned. In the long term, there will be only one location, and that will be Zurich.
Klarsicht was founded by Somm and other investors. Around sixty investors want to inject "substantial" funds. The previous owner Thomas Engeli acts as publisher and sits on the board of directors. The board is chaired by Konrad Hummler. Editorial management is in the hands of Ralph Weibel, who replaces Marco Ratschiller but remains with the organization. (Werbewoche.ch reported).
The company had its strongest circulation in the Nebelspalter in the 1970s and 1980s under the Löpfe-Benz publishing house in Rorschach SG with a circulation of up to 70,000 copies. Today, according to the latest available figures, the paid circulation is 21,000. The Nebelspalter has been in operation since the discontinuation of the English Punch (1841-2002) was the oldest satirical magazine in the world. (SDA)
