Hoy cumple 80 años el Frankfurter Runschau. Lo celebra y lo ilustra con un ejemplar enrollado como una de las columnas de la democracia. Hay que suponer que está envolviendo la columna, ya que no parece muy sólido el periódico enrollado para sostener el tempo de la Democracia.
La empresa se compromete con el preámbulo de los estatutos de la Fundación Karl Gerold. En particular, garantiza que el Frankfurter Rundschau sea y siga siendo un diario independiente, políticamente comprometido y de izquierda liberal, comprometido con el espíritu de la Ley Fundamental y los derechos humanos, y que defienda constantemente el principio incondicional de la democracia y la justicia social. Por consiguiente, lo publicado o editado por la empresa deben hacerse con total independencia de gobiernos, partidos, confesiones religiosas y grupos de interés. La línea editorial debe constar en los contratos de trabajo de los editores.
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La furia de Javier Milei contra el periodismo viene en oleadas. Se activa y se atenúa, al ritmo de la intensidad de la agenda política. Antes del último fin de semana arrancó una de sus mayores escaladas: solo entre el viernes y la tarde del martes emitió en sus redes sociales casi 200 mensajes con ataques a la prensa, le dedicó insultos y apodos agraviantes a una veintena de profesionales, validó campañas de acoso en redes y recurrió a información manipulada para desprestigiar a voces críticas.He escrito hace unos meses que el presidente argentino no hace estas cosas por maleducado sino como estrategia. Tiene bien medido que cada vez que maltrata a los periodistas sube su popularidad. Y curiosamente en esto coincide 100 % con la oposición kirchnerista, porque tanto ellos como Milei han elegido cuidadosamente a los mismísimos enemigos: los pocos periodistas de verdad sumados a los del extremo opuesto de la grieta.
Nadie lee nada
por Leticia Martin
“Se viralizó. ¡Conseguiste tu objetivo!”. Vivimos en una sociedad de logros medidos a partir de un término médico. Lo que identifica al éxito es la capacidad de contagio: que algo se difunda con gran rapidez en las redes.
Estaba a punto de escribir sobre esa desafortunada coincidencia entre el verbo adosado al éxito actual con el verbo que usamos para dar cuenta de una enfermedad cuando, de pronto, me asaltó una idea material y primigenia. ¿Por qué hago esto? ¿Se hará viral escribirlo?
Ya hace más de un año que escribo esta columna semanal para PERFIL; un trabajo que implica compromiso, un deadline, tener palabra y encontrar una forma. Que también creí implicaba cierta trayectoria. Pero hace seis meses que no recibo el pago por mis servicios. Ni el pago ni un aumento, como si los servicios o el costo de vida no hubieran aumentado.
Valoro el espacio, el que me hayan abierto las puertas en un lugar prestigioso, la voz de alguien formado como el propietario de este grupo editorial, un profesional al que escucho como si no fuera el último responsable de la discriminación de la que soy parte. ¿O quizá no es por ser mujer que no me pagan? Ni idea. De eso no sé aunque me duele y con eso me pelee. A eso me respondo: “No te hagas la víctima, Leticia, y ponete a escribir”. Sin embargo, cada jueves recuerdo a Fogwill levantando el teléfono para exigir su honorario antes de enviar la columna semanal para al fin cobrar.
No soy Fogwill y tal vez no exista –como se empeñó en señalarme sin que le tiemble la voz Gustavo Wald, el funcionario que el albertismo bancó hasta el último segundo–. Lo asumo, entonces. Si quieren, no soy, no sé, no existo. Pero acá estoy, y si escribo columnas que tal vez no me paguen, las escribo como si a alguien le importara leerlas, como si fueran un trabajo y recibiera a tiempo la remuneración por ser eficiente y responder, como si no me hicieran sentir que les da igual, que cualquiera estaría dispuesto a reemplazarme mañana mismo.
Pero hoy estoy demasiado triste y no tengo ganas de ir a votar mañana, ni ganas de conservar este trabajo, y quiero contar que hace siete meses que hago esta estupidez y que mañana por fin no voy a poner el despertador a las seis am para escribir los 2500 caracteres sin espacios de esta columna que ya escribí y que sigo honrando solo porque otros que me precedieron la han escrito, solo porque de esos otros algo he aprendido, y no me quiero rendir.
Cincuenta mil pesos de honorarios por mes con seis meses de demora. Cincuenta mil.
When The New European launched in that shell-shocked summer of 2016, it was designed as a pop-up provocation: part newspaper, part lifeline, part defiant middle finger to the populist liars.
The idea was simple – give the 48% a voice in a country that, overnight, felt unrecognisable. A defiant, pro-European howl in tabloid form.
Pop-ups don’t usually last nine years. Somewhere along the way, TNE stopped being a temporary protest and became a permanent proposition – a weekly reminder that journalism didn’t have to choose between brain and bite. And along the way we became that most remarkable thing in the 21st century – a successful, sustainable, new print-based independent media business.
Since taking the business independent three years ago, our revenues have trebled and our subscriber numbers have quadrupled. Today, we are proud to say we have more than 35,000 subscriptions and newsstand sales. It makes us by far the fastest-growing politics and culture title in the country. And we are now profitable – good news for the 2,200 co-owners who invested more than £1m into our enterprise 18 months ago.
So… why change a winning formula? Let me explain.
A few months ago, I was talking to one of my investors, reflecting on The New European’s journey.
“It’s become this extraordinary magazine,” he said. “Amazing writers, a great sense of mission and purpose; fighting against cheap, nasty populism.
“And such extraordinary breadth of content. Politics, culture, arts, philosophy, history, science. Full of ideas and interest from all over the world. Your subscribers love it and there’s literally nothing quite like it.”
He paused, as though a thought was forming. I have a personal rule: never interrupt someone in the middle of a compliment. Eventually, he said:
“You know, you guys aren’t just The New European… you’re the new world.”
The moment he said it, a number of pieces fell into place in my head.
I’d been looking for a way to visibly expand our mission – and here it was: our second chapter. An ambitious statement of intent, and an opportunity to reach new readers who feel exactly the same way about these new times as we all did in 2016 after the Brexit referendum. Because if TNE was born out of Brexit, The New World is born out of something bigger: the global unravelling.
The ideology that powered Brexit didn’t die on the bus – it spread. Trump, Covid, QAnon, the collapse of trust in institutions and authoritative sources, the rise of Milei, the mutation of Modi, the TikTok-ification of public life, and the creeping algorithmic authoritarianism of Big Tech.
Brexit was the beginning: act one of a story that is now truly global – and grotesquely interconnected. From Washington to Budapest, New Delhi to Nairobi, Kyiv to El Salvador, what’s happening isn’t a fluke – it’s a pattern. A dangerous one.
And if our journalism is to remain useful – if we are to do what TNE always promised: to make sense of what the hell is going on, and give space to ideas that challenge the rise of this corrosive nationalism – then we have to be resolutely global, too.
Hence: The New World.
Some will ask: “Aren’t you ditching Europe just as the Labour government starts murmuring about ‘resetting the relationship’ with Brussels?” Not remotely. But Europe is part of a much bigger puzzle now: the reinvention of liberal institutions for a fractured, hyperconnected age.
We’re not rebranding because Brexit’s over – we’re rebranding because Brexit was just the beginning. The same toxic forces that drove it are now global: nationalism, disinformation, democratic backsliding. The New World reflects the bigger fight we’re in. We’re certainly not backing off the topic of Brexit – we’re going in harder.
Others will ask: “Why change at all? You’re profitable, beloved, and respected. Why risk it?” Because staying still is a form of dishonesty. The world has moved on. So must we. And more to the point: we want to.
We’re done with comfort-blanket politics. Done with assuming that “sensible centrism” will naturally reassert itself like gravity. If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that gravity has gone rogue. Clinging to a belief that the pendulum will naturally swing back of its own accord is delusional.
So we go forward.
The New World will think bigger – and deeper. We’re building a new roster of contributors: from India, China, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Ukraine, and beyond. We’re widening the lens. But we’re also turning that lens inward, towards Britain – certainly not just Westminster, but the whole country.
We’re investing in our journalism. We’ve recruited a number of big names to join our roster of talent. Sonia Sodha, formerly of The Observer, joins us as a contributing editor, as does Moisés Naím, award-winning author of The Revenge of Power, Tom Baldwin, Keir Starmer’s biographer and former top Labour adviser, and journalists and authors Marie Le Conte and John Kampfner.
We’re also welcoming the brilliant Emily Herring, Paola Totaro, Marion van Renterghem, and Emma-Kate Symons as contributing editors. There’ll be more to come soon.
And from this week, our weekly newspaper will be printed on the best available super-bright white paper – a significant (and expensive) upgrade that will make our journalism easier to read and give our design and photography more oomph than ever.
You’ll also notice a greater emphasis on areas we believe will come to define this new world: technology, the rise of China, the emergence of multipolar world politics, the challenge of changing demographics, and the reality of climate change. Our Carousel section at the front will take on a more global remit.
There is a whole world of inspiring ideas – alternatives to the right wing populists’ arguments of isolation and scarcity – that go unreported in mainstream media, or get lost in the noise of day-to-day journalism. I want a place to absorb and understand them. I am sure you do, too. That place is The New World.
You can count on Alastair Campbell, Matthew d’Ancona, Patience Wheatcroft, Tanit Koch, James Ball and Paul Mason to provide the best political analysis anywhere. Nigel Warburton and Philip Ball continue to share their passion for philosophy and science respectively.
And there’ll be no scarcity of amusement. Tim Bradford’s popular What in the World cartoon now gets a full page. Jonn Elledge will be deep-diving into a relevant topic each week in a new column, Nerd’s Eye View. And all your favourite puzzles, Great Lives, and our gossip column, Rats in a Sack remain. As does, of course, the beloved Peter Trudgill’s language column.
From an Arts & Culture perspective, you’ll find an expanded version of Matthew d’Ancona’s weekly culture tipsheet, Jason Solomons and John Bleasdale on film, and Emily Herring at the intersection of arts and philosophy. All capped off by Marie Le Conte’s Dilettante column.
I sincerely hope you’ll find the improved, redesigned magazine very, very recognisable. Just… better.
Which brings us to the most important part: what do we actually believe? What are our guiding principles?
We believe the first quarter of the 21st century has been squandered – and that the next quarter must not be. Our children deserve that of us.
We believe the threats to liberal democracy are real, global, and growing.
We believe in science, philosophy, wit and dissent.
We believe in pluralism – and that “patriotism” and “internationalism” can be friends.
We believe class is still a source of division. That tech needs taming. That universities are not the only route to wisdom. That immigration is both a social and economic good.
We believe politics is no longer a branch of economics. Politics is downstream from culture. Trump won because of emotion, not inflation.
We believe history matters.
And yes, in case you have any doubts, we believe Brexit is the biggest single calamity to have befallen this country in our generation. We will never stop providing the proof, holding its facilitators to account, and arguing for Britain to retake its place at the heart of European politics. But we also believe redressing Brexit is just one piece of the puzzle.
Above all else, we believe in the possibility of journalism as a progressive force – conscious as we are that it is so often, to its great shame, the opposite.
The New World isn’t just a title change. It’s a challenge – to us, and to you.
My request to you, dear reader, is: be part of our change – in your subscription, your encouragement, and your feedback. And help us spread the word.
The New World, like The New European before it, is more than just a token of resistance against the tide of corrosive right wing nationalism. We believe its voice will make a difference in the battle for our future. The battle for this new world.
Esta, la de arriba, fue la portada del Observer del pasado 20 de abril. La siguiente, aquí abajo, es la del 27 de abril, que tenía ese fotón de Donald Trump y Volodímir Zelenski conversando en la Basílica de San Pedro después del funeral del Papa Francisco. No puedo saber ahora si fue esa foto la que provocó el cambio en el diseño arrevistado de las portadas del Observer, pero quiero suponerlo.
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