David Remnick: For Washington insiders and people in the media especially, Politico publishes some of the skoopiest and wonkiest reporting inside the Beltway. It's not what you'd call a mass-market publication, but it's a highly influential one, and it's had some very big moments. It was Politico, after all, that obtained Samuel Alito's draft opinion from the Supreme Court about the decision that ended Roe v. Wade. Last year, the German news publisher, Axel Springer, bought Politico for a pretty startling sum, a billion dollars. Springer is based in Berlin and owns the German tabloid Build, among other properties, and it's led by C.E.O. Mathias Döpfner.

Döpfner is famously contrarian and he likes to chide American media for pandering, he says, to increasingly partisan audiences. Even as he himself seems to relish taking provocative stances on some very significant issues. I talked with Mathias Döpfner recently. A very basic question to begin. The media business, as you know better than anybody, is a very tough business these days. Why did you spend a billion dollars to buy Politico?

Mathias Döpfner: For two main reasons. in general, I believe that journalism has a very bright future if we get some things right. to complain about digitization as a threat to journalism, I think, is just wrong. I think digital journalism's going to be better than analog journalism ever was because there's so many more opportunities to have access to information, to the intelligence of the users, to have no deadlines, to have unlimited space, to have a lot of new aesthetic opportunities. Also, the business model is potentially better, so there are a lot of reasons for optimism.

The most important thing is do we really focus on relevance and on integrity and trustworthiness of journalism, or do we fall into that trap to polarize and just in a way amplify prejudice of our readers, which I think is not a sustainable model in the long run? Having said that, I have already in a way indicated the second reason. It is all about the quality of the content, about the unpredictability and open-mindedness and the non-partisan approach of journalism. We have this contrary in that if everybody polarizes, the few who do differently may have the better future. I think Politico, as a brand, stands for that.

David Remnick: You and I and everybody else in our business has been to a thousand conferences and conversations with where we discuss partisanship and nonpartisanship and objectivity and all those buzzwords.

Mathias Döpfner: Let's be specific, there is no objectivity. Objectivity is already a lie because journalism is made by human beings, and human beings have preferences. If you run a story and if you position it prominently or big or small, that's already a judgment. I think it is not about objectivity or neutrality, it is about plurality. It is about, in a way, fairness, and it is about curiosity on facts.

David Remnick: Let's be specific about the landscape in the United States, which you are now entering in a big way. Is The New York Times, which is probably the most well regarded newspaper in the country along with, say, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Are these partisan or nonpartisan news outlets in your view?

Mathias Döpfner: They are non-partisan news outlets because the diversity and quality of journalism that they deliver cannot be positioned as a political agenda. There are developments where I take a more critical view, and that is if the head of the editorial pages has to resign because he published the guest commentary of a Republican senator while he was not criticized of publishing guest commentaries by Putin or terrorists, that I think is problematic. The debate about freedom of expression is needed, but to portray brands like that as partisan, I think is too superficial.

David Remnick: Now, Axel Springer, which owns Politico and much else, Axel Springer employees in Germany have to sign a pledge committing to "principles" that include a disavowing of racism, sexism, and political or religious extremism. They've also got to support a United Europe, Israeli Statehood, and a free market economy. Those are points of view. Why would Axel Springer want its reporters or editors anywhere to sign a pledge saying that there are not Brexiteers as opposed to people who support a united Europe or somebody who's arguing about the politics of Israel?

Mathias Döpfner: I think it is a very important element of transparency and honesty of a media company. We had that discussion briefly. There is no neutral journalism. Every journalism and every publisher who pretends to be neutral is already lying. That's why we thought, and if I say we, it is the founder of the company decades ago who started with four principles. Then I added a fifth principle, which is the solidarity within the free values of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance. We have modernized these five principles a couple of times. It is almost like a constitution of the company. Those are our fundamental social values, and that has nothing to do with party politics, with people politics, or with day-to-day politics.

There is almost endless room within these values to, on a daily basis, on a very individual basis, take positions which our journalists do, but they do it based on their plurality of opinions. I think it is very important to have, on the one hand, the transparency of these five constitutional values of Axel Springer. Everybody knows what we stand for, and I take pride that in our company, not everybody writes what I think is right and I encourage this dialogue and debate.

David Remnick: What's confusing to me here on the pledge, for example, let's say I'm a Politico reporter and I have doubts about a United Europe. Let's say I was born in Britain and I think in fact the united Europe didn't work for Britain, and I'm pro-Brexit, but I'm also committed to, I disavow racism, sexism, and all the rest. If I have one part of the pledge that I don't feel comfortable with, I can't be a reporter at Politico?

Mathias Döpfner: Well, for example, if you would deny the principle of the free market economy and would advocate socialism as the right model for society, then I think there are better places to work for. If you say antisemitism should be spread on social media, that's the wrong company.

David Remnick: Those are different things.

Mathias Döpfner: Let's go concretely into the details. I personally have given an interview to the Financial Times the day after Brexit and said I'm more worried about continental Europe and the EU than I'm worried about England. I think they were just running away from too much bureaucracy and failed policy. That criticism is happening every day, and one person is pro-Brexit, the other one against it. That I think does not in general mean that you are against the idea of a United Europe. Perhaps the EU institutions failed, and that's why that event was healthy.

David Remnick: Now, The Washington Post reported weeks before the US presidential election that you sent a surprising message to your closest executives. You wrote, "Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning of November 3rd and pray that Donald Trump will again become president of the United States of America?" Can you clarify, were you kidding around? Were you dead serious?

Mathias Döpfner: Yes. Everybody who met me once or spoke to me for a couple of minutes know that that was a joke. It was under the impression of the breaking news that the administration of Trump suing Google because of abuse of market domination, and that is a topic that I was very involved with. That was this moment where basically every publisher around the world was happy about that decision. In that context, I made jokes to three executive colleagues in the chat. Everybody who wants to portray me as a Trumpist should read the text that I wrote for many years. In 2017, I wrote an article where I described his language as the language of the mafia. I think I'm not in that thing, in that campaign.

David Remnick: If you don't mind, you also went on to argue that Trump has made the right moves on five of what you deem as the six most important issues of the last half century, "Defending the free democracies against Russia and China, pushing NATO allies to up their contributions, tax reform and Middle East peace efforts, as well as challenging tech monopolies." I'm just asking to be clear, because the press coverage of you does, as you say, at times make you out to be if not a Trumpist, then certainly Trump adjacent.

Mathias Döpfner: I try to explain. When he took office there was a very strong media bias in Europe and in America, and I think that has strengthened Trump even because he was almost, he became a hero anti-establishment media. That led also to some misunderstands because sometimes the wrong people can promote the right things. In the case of Trump very clearly the example of China, intuitively and conceptually, that was absolutely the right direction of politics, which is, by the way, continued to a surprising degree by the Biden administration. I think it is really important to see the topic and not the person.

Another example is NATO, the push for adequate NATO funding. It turned out to be so right after the experience of the Ukrainian War. I think we have to distinguish general directions of policy and person, and then that leads us to the storm of on the capital and the denial of election results happened. I think that is a moment where political discussions stop. That was a coup from the top, it was undermining democracy. It is perhaps the most severe threat to democracy in the recent US history. I think there should be zero tolerance. I think party political discussions stop here.

David Remnick: Last year you ordered the Israeli flag to be flown in solidarity at company headquarters during unrest in Gaza. I don't know what you were reacting to the anti-Semitic outbursts at demonstrations, or you were taking aside vis-a'-vis the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians?

Mathias Döpfner: Absolutely not the letter, but the first. It was a moment when on Berlin Streets and all over Germany, a lot of anti-Semitic demonstrations happened. In that moment we have four flags in front of our company, and very often the LGBT flag, or we have now at the moment, the Ukrainian flag. In that moment when there were these anti-Semitic demonstrations, we said for one week we flag the Israeli flag as a gesture of opposition against this form of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. Some people were criticizing that and said, "I don't want to work for a company that was raising the Israeli flag." Then I said spontaneously, and I would repeat that whenever I'm asked again, "If somebody really has an issue in such a situation, then perhaps there's a better place for you to work for."

If there is no sensitivity, that particularly in Germany, in Berlin where the Holocaust was planned and executed and where 6 million Jews were killed, the German guilt is still present. If there is not a healthy reaction against it and if you then set that gesture and people have an issue with that, then really, perhaps there are better companies to work for. I think, again, here also it's transparency. That does not mean that we advocate a one state solution or anything. We would also demonstrate for Palestinian rights of existence, we are for all rights of existence of legitimate institutions and nations.

David Remnick: Axel Springer supports the rise of a Palestinian statehood?

Mathias Döpfner: I personally prefer a two state solution, but my personal preferences don't matter. I've always distinguished that very clearly. I speak up, I'm a journalist. I worked for 20 years as a journalist. I'm occasionally writing editorials, but that has zero impact on the very diverse editorial lines of our brands. No journalist ever cares what I think.David Remnick: [Laughs] I wonder how you see various media barons in our country. How do you see Rupert Murdoch? Is he a role model or is he a cautionary tale as far as his contributions to political discourse?

Mathias Döpfner: I know him, and I think what he has done over the decades is a legendary achievement. Nevertheless, I would say I'm pretty much the anti Murdoch in my self-definition. I think this whole idea of moguls and media barons is ssooutdated. Maybe there was a time for that, but I think these times are over. I'm a journalist who is running a media company in the role of a CEO and shareholder. I'm not a mogul. I don't want to become one. I think for me, the most important thing is to really empower journalists in their independence and in their intrinsic anti-authoritarian instincts.

You have to decide whether you either employ journalists who obey or if you employ journalists who excel. If they obey, they cannot excel. You have to create a culture that they don't care what you think politically or ideologically. Also in that sense I think a more pragmatic approach and a more forward-looking approach, a more progressive approach is our mindset.

David Remnick: Is Fox News a positive contribution to the discourse in American democracy?

Mathias Döpfner: I would put it this way. If Fox News is part of a diverse field of competition and perhaps also a diverse [unintelligible 00:14:55] then it may be a contribution. I don't want to judge, but our idea's different.

David Remnick: Why not? What's wrong with judging it?

Mathias Döpfner: It can be easily perceived as one competitor tells others what they should do or what they do well or not so well. I'm not a friend of that, honestly. Let's talk about our own ideas and strategies and that perhaps then indirectly also gives answers to how we see what the competitors are doing. On a more general basis, I truly think that this polarization of media landscape, and that is not only a US phenomena, the same happens in Europe. I think it's really unhealthy, not only unhealthy for the society but also unhealthy for media brands. Of course, social media have contributed to that. The business model is based on that.

The highest click rates are generated by the most polarizing and extreme headlines and words. I think that is a tremendous opportunity for real media brands who do differently. That's the opportunity for journalism actually.

David Remnick: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Mathias Döpfner: With pleasure.

David Remnick: Mathias Döpfner is the CEO of Axel Springer. The company acquired Politico for a billion dollars last year.

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