sex and politics

A rather nice flash animation on Reporter’s website

Remeber Silverster Šurla and all the brouhaha about Delo, Mag, Laško and Andrijana Starina Kosem?

Well, one of the results (apart from Delo becoming rabidly anti-government) is Tuesday’s launch of Reporter, a weekly magazine which promises to deliver a hundred pages of high quality content every week. Bringing attention to stories that are intentionally or otherwise overlooked by other media, Reporter team will conform to the highest journalistic and ethical standards.

So much for the pitch. How about reality?

Naturally, too early to say. Hats off to Šurla & Co. for having the balls to create a new magazine, although it seems obvious that they were driven by revenge because Mag magazine was “taken from them” rather than by a healthy journalistic drive. But it is of no matter - a fit of anger can be a good thing if channelled correctly.

Obviously Reporter is aimed at Mag’s “previous” readers, those who (I presume) gravitate to the right of political centre. Which is cool. However, as Reporter is trying to fill the void created by Mag’s new (wider and more general) orientation, it is - in my opinion - trying to emulate Mag as we knew it a bit too hard. I realize that it was a rush-job and that the team didn’t exactly dwell on the format of the magazine, but only re-created the one they knew, but (and I’m speaking out of experience here) once you start, it’s extremely hard to upgrade your design and layout.

Reporter does not offer anything new, neither in terms of design nor in terms of content. Which I think is a wasted opportunity. I assume Mag was not exactly heaven on Earth and one of the reasons for Delo buying the magazine in 2005 (while Janša and Šrot were still buddies) was to keep it from folding economicaly once again. So if Reporter is aiming for that same target population, it is in deep trouble from the beginning. Which would be a shame - assuming that its stated goals of proffesionalism and high standards are real, and for the moment I’m more than prepared to give Šurla & Co. the benefit of the doubt.

So, regardless of its political affiliation or orientation, I keep my fingers crossed for Reporter. A hundred pages every week is a lot, both in terms of money and content. And hopefully, the latter will be of interest to people who didn’t read Mag before and don’t read it now either.