So today I had fun (a lot of fun) examining the ads of the publication. You may have heard that to get a real idea of the readership of a paper or magazine you should look at their sponsors. So here are the ad accounts for the first issue.
Cantine Terre del Barolo docg wine, fine but costly. Bollati-Boringhieri publisher-very erudite, scholarly, low circulation. Monge gourmet pet food (which they call "pet food" in English, but specify that it uses a 100% Italian recipe for your cat or dog). Marco Travaglio himself, branding his cute little face. DAB Dortmunder imported German beer. And my favorite: Turin Spirituality, which advertises a scuola di otium meditativo, or course of meditative leisure/idleness (they used the Latin otium rather than the Italian ozio to avoid the idea of just lying about).
So. Their reader may well be a classically-educated person attending a school to think and be idle (reminds me of Socrates' Phrontisterion in Clouds), alternating a nice Barolo with their fine meals and imported beer with their more casual fare, while not neglecting their pure-bred pooch (who is eating 100% Italian food, but no Barolo), reading a tome on the Kantian view of morality and quoting Travaglio or Grillo about the gross injustice of Italian society and the condition of immigrants. And the Cia. And the Pope. And Berlusconi. And...
Radical chic lives. Unfortunately.
Update, 9/26/09. Conspiracy theory, anyone? In the mood for a little dietrologia?
OK, here's a little intelligence test while you're at it. What do four out of the five advertisers above have in common? They're all from the Piemonte area. The wine, the pet food, even the spirituality. But the paper is in Rome, and is meant to be a national and not a regional paper. Who is from Piemonte? Marco Travaglio, Turin native and resident. Even the German beer that is advertised has its Italian location in nearby Genoa. Hmmmm. Torinese, falso e cortese.
