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Saying farewell with a flashback
Written by: Philippe Riboton
What's a goodbye without a bit of reminiscing?
Here's a few words from, for, and about the people that made The
Prague Tribune a labor of love.
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QUOTES
 Jack Stack, CEO, Česká spořitelna
» I believe The Prague Tribune has set a very high
standard for journalistic professionalism and for
high quality writing. I will most definitely miss
the editorial - it was a must in our family, and
was always thought-provoking.
Gabriele Guzzo,
marketing director, Mattoni
» I've been reading The Prague Tribune since I came
to the Czech Republic in 1993. I feel I will miss
a smart observer, a lucid guide, and a good friend.
 Philip Aarsman, managing director, Business Lease
» The Prague Tribune showed that another approach
is possible. To focus on success and not only on
the corruption and failures. I will miss the sometimes
cheeky but always striking, editorial, the "time-off" section,
people, interviews, case studies, and the "Focus" articles.
Armin Zerunyan, general director, Hotel Hilton
» The Prague Tribune was the first real modern lifestyle
and business magazine in the Czech Republic in
English. It helped me feel the pulse of Prague.
 Naveed Gill, general director
Tiscali Telekomunikace ČR
» The Prague Tribune developed over time into something
more than 'browse-through material', and created
some essential reading. I will miss most Mr. Riboton's
editorial, and the in-depth interviews.
Anthony Shee, managing director, Kinnarps
» The Prague Tribune brought an individual and fresh
approach. Its editorial, its insightful interviews
and analysis were a treat. I will simply miss it.
 Tomáš Prouza, Deputy Finance Minister
» The Prague Tribune brought a different viewpoint
on goings-on in the Czech Republic, and a willingness
to write about successes, not only problems. I read
it for objective journalism and for a different point
of view than that offered by classic Czech media.
Vít Šubert, marketing director, Dell Computer
» From its beginning, The Prague Tribune was a very
serious and credible medium. It enriched the Czech
media market, and had practically no serious competitor
in its category.
 Martin Roman, general director, ČEZ
» I think that The Prague Tribune certainly influenced
other business periodicals on the Czech market, as
it was one of the first to conjoin business and lifestyle.
The high-quality paper, format, work with photographs
and text - all of this provided a direction to the
others. It gave space to Czech entrepreneurs who
managed to succeed even amidst foreign competition.
It showed positive examples of people who asserted
themselves through diligence and audacity.
Marko Pařík, general director, Delta Pekárny
» The Prague Tribune brought a different viewpoint
than the typical Czech outlook on the problems and
development of our society. It was certainly more
audacious and without taboos. One example of this
that I will particulartly miss is Mr Riboton's introductory
comments.
Jan Sýkora, general director, Wood & Company:
» High-quality format, solid and professional journalism:
The Prague Tribune showed that making an interesting
and professional magazine works. I will miss a magazine
like this.
 Martin Jahn, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs
» The Prague Tribune was a high-quality magazine
- it always brought objective news and a very valuable
view from "outside". Publishing the magazine
in two languages was an excellent idea; many Czechs
thus gained an attractive possibility for improving
their English, and foreigners living in the Czech
Republic had the chance to work on their Czech. It
was amusing, never stale, and it had an interesting
composition of information that you couldn't find
elsewhere. I am very disappointed that it's ending...it's
a loss. |
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LOOKING BACK at the early days, there were plenty of reasons why
The Prague Tribune should have never seen the light of day. History
will recall that its first issue was actually conceived in some
tiny office in Paris, with a group of people that had no knowledge
at all about press publishing, nor about former Czechoslovakia.
The only person to give a bit of credibility to its start-up team
abroad was a retired journalist from the Czech Press Agency (ČTK)
who loved France, was smoking French gitanes like a chimney, and
was spending nights dictating Czech diacriticals to a a stoned
graphic designer, one by one, with a French keyboard that didn't
have any!
Philip Staehelin |
The Prague Tribune memories are full of those stories that would
have threatened the life of a normal business from day one - it
did not have the necessary capital to survive a start-up; it did
not have anybody with the relevant experience in an emerging market;
it did not have the IT equipment needed for such a mission. But
it had a vision: to build a bridge between the Czech entrepreneurial
sector and the international community. To be the mirror of a new
economy and a new generation to emerge. "It all created the
feeling of being part of something bigger than just a magazine",
recalls Philip Staehelin, former finance manager of the company
and now head of the managing director's office at T-Mobile in Prague.
Still, its first issue came out like an act of God - and God was
kind enough to stay around and repeat the miracle every two months
(it was bimonthly at the time).
Jaroslav Nejedlý |
Judge for yourself. Its sales team basically consisted of Czech
medical students that were making pocket money to finance their
studies. Its editorial team was no less exotic, essentially made
up of Americans doing their European tour right after university
and falling in love with Czech girls...and Czech beer. No wonder
there was an unbelievable degree of commitment and energy on tap;
people were working around the clock and sleeping in the office. "We
were all on the same boat, we were simply giving the best of ourselves," recalls
Samir Benmammar, one of the magazine's first sales representatives,
now director of Vanadoo, an incentive company. "Solidarity,
dedication, enthusiasm, team spirit, white nights, it was all there," he
says. "When the pressure was on, everyone pulled together
and performed like a symphony orchestra," recalls Fabrice
Biundo, another of its first sales representatives, now advertising
director of Hachette Filippachi in Prague. As a result, the closing
of each issue was a life's achievement for everybody involved. "Working
at The Prague Tribune was unlike any other job I've ever had," says
its first editor-in-chief Christine Bučan-Fauci, now executive
vice-president at a Miami PR firm. "We worked hard, but with
a sense of humor." It was a tradition of sorts to finish every
issue in the wee hours of the morning, after spending an average
of 24 hours making it come to life. With dawn's early light coming
into The Prague Tribune office on the top floor of Americká 17
in Vinohrady, it looked like everybody was emerging from the maternity
room after a delivery - washed out, but proud and happy. "All
those overnights and weekends were like a toll we didn't mind paying
to our passion," admits Jaroslav Nejedlý, the mastermind behind
the design and the production of the magazine for no less than
10 years. "Those were beautiful years of my life that I will
never forget," he adds.
Christine Bučan
Radha Burgess
Catherine
Riboton
Klára Smolová |
After one or two chaotic early years, when the magazine was rolling
along on the edge of bankruptcy, it started to somehow get organized
- assuming you could say that of a company managed by a Frenchman! "Who
wouldn't want to work for the French, are you kidding?" jokes
John Letzing, an American journalist formerly with The Prague Tribune,
now writing for Dow Jones in California. "The entire month
of July off! Birthday celebrations for employees with wine in the
afternoon!" This family flavor and work atmosphere certainly
owed a lot to the fact that the main operations of the company
have long been managed by women. The wife's publisher, Catherine
Riboton, was the magazine's first advertising manager. With the
face of an angel and the faith of a warrior, she was proudly promoting
the magazine like her newly born first child, Juliette, another
Prague Tribune baby. The maternity instinct was no less intense
in the editorial room - each of the magazine's three chief editors
over those 12 years have been women. Christine Fauci-Bučan, an
American, Radha Burgess, a Brit, and Klára Smolová, a Czech, all
watched over the independence and quality of the magazine like
a female wolf protecting its cubs. "I can't recall the number
of times I had to explain that we don't take money for writing
about a specific company, or that we don't submit texts to people
that are interviewed for 'proofreading'," recalls Klára Smolová,
its last editor in chief, now on the way to join the Trader Media
Group in London to launch a new magazine. "These practices
are so common in the Czech Republic that everyone thinks they're
normal, not realizing that this is not what independent journalism
should look like," she adds.
In fact, freedom from power and freedom from money define what
kept The Prague Tribune from becoming another of those unbranded
products that invaded the market during its lifetime. Consequently,
it also severely suffered from its refusal to submit to the local
advertising "dictatorship". Exchanging an editorial page
for an advertising page, committing to regular coverage of a specific
company for the promise of a long-term advertising contract, etc.
As long as CEO's were in control of advertising spending, this
was a doable confrontation. The magazine could flex its muscle
and still get respect. From the moment advertising power got transferred
to a bunch of uneducated and greedy middlemen, the only possible
choice was that of Johann Faust, who sold his soul for power and
wealth. The Prague Tribune is folding today because it never made
that choice.
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Going behind the
billboard
These days articles that cover in detail the property
of politicians are common, but in 1993 an article detailing the
property of then-President Havel was something brand new and
caused a lot of controversy.
There was not and is not anything wrong about President Havel's
property, as most of it is real estate that belonged to his parents
in the past. Nevertheless, the article evoked many negative reactions
from people who saw it as an insult to a person they thought of
as nearly god-like. In intellectual circles abroad, Havel was very
popular back in the 1980s, and as Philippe Riboton, the publisher
of The Prague Tribune, recalls, "our perception of him was
as a pauper who wrote amazing things." When he came to the
Czech Republic at the beginning of the '90s, he was surprised to
discover that Havel was himself in fact a "grand bourgeois".
Havel wasn't at all excited in people's interest in his property.
A French journalist, Anne Dastakian, a co-author of the article,
recalls, "Havel was dismayed by questions dealing with his
property and tried to evade them. In my opinion, one of the reasons
was that he'd suffered all his life for being from a capitalist
family, but had never lived as a capitalist."
The article describing the Havel family's property and its estimated worth was
supplemented by an interview with the president in which he said, among other
things, that he had no business ambitions. According to Christine Fauci (now
Bučan), the article's other author, it wasn't at all easy to arrange the interview.
The questions were sent by fax (in 1993 there was no e-mail in the Czech Republic),
and after many telephone calls and reminders the president finally answered them. "It
was amazing for us, publishing an interview with the president," Christine
adds. That the article brought something new was borne out by its being reprinted
by several American and French magazines.
The entire story had a parallel plot. The Prague Tribune wanted to support its
sales with an advertising campaign, so the cover with President Havel appeared
on billboards. This evoked great indignation at the Castle, with Havel's spokesman
Ladislav Špaček protesting the use of the president's photograph in an advertisement,
and asking Philippe Riboton, the publisher of The Prague Tribune, to cease the
campaign. Mr. Riboton refused, and the president's spokesman at the time threatened
to bring a law-suit for breaching the president's right to privacy. Our publisher
determinedly maintained the campaign, but no legal action was taken against the
magazine. Radio Alfa, which used not only Havel but also then-Prime Minister
Václav Klaus and then-British Prime Minister John Major in its advertising, encountered
the same problem. But unlike Havel, according to the media, the other two politicians
had no problem appearing in advertisements.
Petr Vykoukal |
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Putting the corruption on the
cover
Opening a Czech magazine today it seems that everyone
is writing about corruption, but in 1993 it was something
completely new.
Back in 1993 corruption was an unpopular topic, and "writing about it
was seen as undermining the newly ascending democracy," recalls Monika
Mudranincová (then Hájková), one of the article's authors, adding, "no
one wanted to speak with us about corruption; we encountered reactions of incomprehension
that we wanted to write about it." One of the few people to communicate
openly with The Prague Tribune was Petr Pithart - he was also one of the few
Czech politicians to announce publicly that he had been approached with bribes.
The Prague Tribune revisited the topic of corruption in 1997. But as Tomáš
Prouza, the author of that article and now deputy finance minister, recalls, "I
only had to say that the topic of my interview was corruption - then no one
wanted to speak with me," he says. "Originally we wanted to write
about the experiences of firms and entrepreneurs, but no one wanted to make
any official statements about this issue," says Prouza. "On the other
hand, many unofficial stories were available - they were all about people's
competitors..." he adds. Nevertheless, you can see from the article that
the mood in society had changed, as while four years earlier, many people saw
corruption as a necessary evil associated with capitalism, in 1997 you could
sense that we had paid a high price for not resolving the problem.
And while corruption is still rife, when we look at the 1993 article in issue
#4, we discover that at least some things are different. Back then, an anonymous
restaurant owner admitted that he "paid" CZK 60,000 for the accelerated
installation of three telephone lines. Today he could choose from among several
telecom operators, and that's certainly good news. But what's worse is that
other "fees", such as facilitating various documents from authorities,
are still a reality. In the 2005 rankings compiled by Transparency International,
the Czech Republic is in 47th place, on a par with Namibia.
Petr Vykoukal |
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Giving women space
The Prague Tribune never presented women in business
as an "endangered species", but rather as a simple
matter of course and an enriching part of the community.
"THE IDEA OF HAVING a 'women in business' cover was
quite natural for us. We could see how prominent women were
becoming in the workplace in general," recalls Radha
Burgess, former editor-in-chief of The Prague Tribune, who
now works as an associate director at West Bridge Consulting
in Great Britain.
The editors who worked on those articles were surprised to
find out that job inequality didn't matter much to Czech
women. "The Czech women were uncomfortable about being
associated with whiney feminists," says Emma McClune,
who wrote the article for The Prague Tribune, "and just
didn't feel like complaining about all the good fortune they'd
already experienced in their respective careers." One
of the women with whom Emma spoke back in 1996 was Olga Girstlová,
the general director of GiTy and one of the most influential
women in Czech business. "You gave positive examples
of the three roles of women - professionals in their field,
partners, and mothers in family life, and the importance
of their personal happiness and self-realization," says
Girstlová. Magdalena Souček, a partner at the Czech division
of Ernst&Young, adds that there are still differences
in the positions of men and women at work, so they still
deserve the publicity. "Too much care can sometimes
be detrimental, but society needs to be educated."
For The Prague Tribune, articles on this theme were a daily
reality - there were always women managers at the magazine.
The image was initially established by Christine Bučan-Fauci,
followed by Radha Burgess, and now Klára Smolová. "Just
as the publisher gave space to successful and capable women
on the magazine's pages, he also made space for women on
the magazine's team," notes Klára.
Milan Duda |
Bringing competitors
into the arena
In May 1997, The Prague Tribune looked at the
battle between Eurotel and RadioMobil (owner of the Paegas
brand) in a "brand-new - and potentially lucrative
- market." At that time, Paegas (later bought by
T-Mobile) had 53,000 customers and Eurotel courted 140,000.
Those mobile operators now have customer bases of 4.55
million and 4.49 million, respectively.
It's been a long road to reach those numbers, though.
Klaus Tebbe, RadioMobil's managing director at the beginning,
now on the management board at Poland's largest mobile
operator, PTC, looks back fondly. "I remember starting
without a real office, people, suppliers, or defined processes," he
says. Paegas was essentially a start-up then, hiring some
150 people between March and December 1996. "Everybody
was 150% motivated, working seven days a week around the
clock in extremely difficult conditions," recounts
Tebbe.
The Prague Tribune portrayed the struggle between the two
carriers in 1997 as David (Paegas) versus Goliath (Eurotel). "Eurotel
looked better in the first issue in May 1997," Tebbe
admits. "In the second story (1998), it was already
balanced." Which made the battle even more intense. "We
were fighting in all areas," Tebbe says, "although
competition was executed [mainly] through the media and
PR."
Years later, though, a new David-and-Goliath story was
emerging. By 2003, a third operator, Oskar, had become
the new underdog. In its January 2003 issue, The Prague
Tribune ran the first CEO roundtable, gathering all three
top managers to discuss the market. "I agreed because
I was intrigued by the direct and confrontational format.
I thought it would be a fun and interesting way to present
CEO's views 'live and unedited'," says Terrence Valeski,
former head of Eurotel, now chairman of the board at Sonim
Technologies. After seing the interview in print, T-Mobile
CEO Roland Mahler commented: "The article provided
a fair snapshot of the discussion, albeit with a few rough
edges."
Only three years later, things on the market have already
changed - Eurotel has new owners and management, and was
passed by T-Mobile in customer numbers, and Oskar can no
longer play the underdog after being purchased this year
by Vodafone. While the battle continunes, it seems that
most spectators have already chosen sides.
Jason Hovet |
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Showing
both sides of the story
September 2000 marked a milestone for The Prague Tribune,
with the unveiling of a sleeker, more visual format. The content
also got an overhaul, and in the new issue readers saw an exclusive
interview with the famed "pirate of Prague," Viktor
Kožený, a man still wanted here for privatization fraud. Kožený
spoke with our reporter long-distance from his Bahamas residence.
The interview came at an interesting time for Kožený, as
litigation suits had recently been filed against the businessman
claiming he defrauded American investors in an Azerbaijani
privatization which never got off the ground, costing investors
their money. To Kožený, he was being made a scapegoat. "The
investors were willing to take on a tremendous risk," he
said in the interview. "They tried to 'heal' themselves
at my expense." Indeed, it was expensive for the entrepreneur,
as today he sits in a Bahamas jail, awaiting extradition
to the United States.
With Kožený appearing on the issue's covered decked out in
a dark business suit underneath palm trees, The Prague Tribune
received criticisms of glorifying the Czech fugitive. However,
for the magazine, the interview was an attempt to report
all sides of the Czech business scene - the good, bad, and
ugly. That approach was tested again, in April 2001, when
Milan Šrejber, another controversial entrepreneur, spoke
with our writers.
Šrejber had been sentenced to five and a half years for misusing
business information, and allegedly trading within the funds
he gained during coupon privatization. As a financial supporter
of ODS who publicly admitted his contributions, he was also "sent
up" by the Ministry of Finance when the donations he
made to that party were determined to be illegal. At the
time when these charges were still under appeal, Šrejber
spoke about his case with René Jakl, a journalist for The
Prague Tribune. In an interview that would become another
of the magazine's "exclusives", Šrejber mainly
talked about clearing his reputation. "I would like
justice here," he said, "and for people not to
be persecuted just because there is a demand for that in
society. I have never cheated anyone." The court agreed
soon after, and Šrejber was released in July 2002, having
served a short spell in prison. Since that time, Šrejber,
unlike Kožený, has disappeared from local headlines.
Jason Hovet
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Backing a new
generation
One of the fundamental missions of The Prague
Tribune was giving space on its pages to young talents
who were beginning to build their positions in the world
of business.
"IF YOU Look at every second issue of our competitors,
you still see coverage of the dinosaurs of the Czech economy
or politics," observes the magazine's publisher, Philippe
Riboton. "They ignore the emerging Czech business
generation that represents the new blood and the future
of this country. This is at the core of the identity and
marketing differentiation of The Prague Tribune."
Many articles were devoted to promising persons in the
business world. "Some of them have remained at the
top, some of them have given it up. But what's important
to people doing business today is their stories, their
ideas, and their know-how," says Jasna Sýkorová, a
former contributor to The Prague Tribune and now an editor
at Lidové noviny. "That was the magazine's strength
- portraying inspiration, and sometimes even a specific
road to success," she adds. Beyond business, the magazine
was also interested in people who stood out from the crowd
in various areas of politics, sports, or even the arts.
Names like Zuzana Stivínová, Bohuslav Sobotka, Bára Nesvadbová
or Jan P. Muchow were not as well known when The Prague
Tribune wrote about them as they are today. Similarly interesting
are the stories of individual young talents who created
the magazine each month. "Judging by the positions
our former contributors hold in the Czech Republic but
also abroad - from Tomáš Prouza, who is now deputy-minister
of finance in Prague, to Craig Karmin at The Wall Street
Journal, Killian Schalk at The New Yorker, or John Letzing
at Dow Jones - I believe we were not too bad at picking
the right young and promising talents," notes Riboton.
Milan Duda
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