SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Gerlach, how did you manage to keep up with a small magazine like "Zenith" for 20 years?
Gerlach: By reinventing ourselves over and over again, and eventually realizing we can do it without the big commercial breakthrough. It's a bit like the Middle East with "Zenith" and the media market: survival is everything.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you currently see the meaning of "Zenith"?
Gerlach: Due to the flood of information about the Middle East and the Arab world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to interpret and interpret what is happening there. We hope that we can contribute to a certain classification.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you differentiate yourself from the many other media that report from the region?
Gerlach: Since we are not a news medium that reports daily, we can give orientation in the debate and report ahead. For example, we can show lines of conflict before they reach the headlines. Many media are there when it bangs, and also quickly away when the powder vapor evaporates. We also see no contradiction between a critical distance to a topic and an empathic reporting in which we try a bit to put ourselves into the cultures.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Which moments were particularly meaningful for you and for "Zenith" in the last 20 years?
Gerlach: Relative to political events, these were certainly the 2003 Iraq war and the beginning of the Arab Spring. We also could not predict what would happen, but we knew many of the actors beforehand, be they bloggers or human rights activists - on both the good and the bad sides. We had already reported many of these people, because our eyes are on societies and not just on the political macro perspective.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were there difficult situations?
Gerlach: If we got on with the power. For example, our Kurdistan edition of 2013, when we had a few thousand hacker attacks on our site. That was not without. But in the end we have not suffered a great defeat. We never had to take anything back. There are certain stories that I would certainly do differently today, but we have remained largely scandal free.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A common prejudice states that only Muslims and Muslims would study Islamic Studies. It was different with you. What was the attraction for you?
Gerlach: The exciting thing about this discipline is that you do not only deal with language and literature, or only with politics, but holistically approach the topic. And I think the cultural and social penetration of the region is important. From a purely political-scientific perspective, one can not understand what is happening there. Add to that the historical perspective: where does it come from? And which underlying causes and patterns can be recognized?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where is the journey for "Zenith"?
Gerlach: Of course we want to continue to exist. Then there is the junior question. Do young people want to take the risk to assert themselves in this area? But I think "Zenith" is an eternal media startup, and has won its place in this world, the ever-faster, more obscure and increasingly difficult to gauge messages. I hope we can cover our niche.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And how can the financing succeed?
Gerlach: What we do is not actually a commercial product; we can not consider that as a commodity, but must build a community and try to find non-profit financing models. For example, through our Candid Foundation, which we founded in 2014. I also see that for others as a model for the future.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Especially for small media?
Gerlach: No, not exclusively. The question of how to finance media and high-quality information will keep us busy for a long time. And that's where I think it would be good if even big media companies could open up and be involved in taking part in such models as well.
