Reflex is a Czech weekly magazine focusing on political, social and cultural topics. It was founded in 1990 and is currently owned by company Czech News Center. It is one of the Czech Republic's most controversial and widely read social-political magazines; its print circulation of 60,000 copies (as of January, 2010) reaches approximately 270,000 readers. Polls conducted by the Czech Publishers Association (Unie vydavatelů) in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 placed Reflex first in its category.
Background
Reflex was founded in 1990 following the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Its first editor-in-chief, Petr Hájek and a group of promising, like-minded Czech journalists established its combination of political news journal and life style magazine. The result was an original and distinctively Czech approach to current affairs. Hájek's ideas and format were vindicated as Reflex gradually created its own niche within an expanding and increasingly competitive market for Czech periodicals. In 1993 Hájek won the disapproval of some of his colleagues when he sold Reflex to the Swiss corporation Ringier without prior consultation: Josef Klíma, a co-founder of Reflex and a prominent Czech investigative journalist, remembers Hájek as "the greatest disappointment in my life" Hájek left to work as a media consultant in marketing and advertising. From 2003 - 2008 he was campaigner and spokesman for his long-standing political ally, Czech President Václav Klaus.
In 1995, Ringier appointed Petr Bílek as Reflex''' editor-in-chief. During Bilek's 13 year tenure the magazine's style and orientation shifted profoundly. According to him, Reflex's position in the early 1990s was "idyllic, due to non-existent competition". Its early editions ran to around 200,000 copies; Reflex and a single significant competitor, Respekt, dominated the free media market. According to Bílek, early Reflex journalism was founded on a "very uncompromising", critical approach to Czechoslovakia's communist past and the surviving remnants of communist attitudes and institutions. As Czech society changed, Reflex kept pace under Bilek, whose editorial policy shifted focus away from the past towards contemporary political events and social changes but its earlier "idyllic" position was eroded by an increasingly competitive, diversified market. Part of its earlier readership was apparently lost to a revamped and modernised Respekt but it retained a substantial share of the market and remains popular with readers and advertisers: independent estimates found a likely target readership of approximately 270,000 for its January 2010 print circulation of 60,000 copies, making it the most successful advertising vehicle of 2010 among Czech political-social magazines. In 2008, Bílek stepped down. He was replaced by Pavel Šafr, former editor-in-chief of the newspapers Mladá fronta DNES and Lidové noviny: from 2010, Bílek served Reflex as an external editor. In 2010, the NY Times described Reflex as one of the leading weekly periodicals in the Czech Republic.
Style Reflex has been described as conservative and anti-leftist; its 20th anniversary issue included a manifesto against left-wing ideology and Czech Social Democratic Party politics. On the website Britské listy, Czech media expert Jan Čulík positions it between tabloid commercialism and quality journalism. Jiří Pehe describes it as popular but untrustworthy, a right-leaning and rather pro-Civic Democratic Party forum.
Content and controversyReflex regularly covers controversial political and social issues in a controversial manner. Regular Reflex contributor Jiří X. Doležal campaigned for the decriminalization of small growers and users of cannabis, and organised an annual contest through the magazine. A Reflex Cannabis Cup was awarded for the best reader's photos of home grown cannabis. In 2010, the Czech legislature adopted more tolerant cannabis laws; Doležal announced the end of the contest: "...in future, the contest should be organized by the cannabis business, not by a social magazine". Some of magazine's covers have made controversial suggestions about prominent figures in Czech public life and politics.
In 2001, Zelený Raoul, a Reflex satirical comic strip illustrated by Štěpán Mareš, showed the former Social-democratic minister Karel Březina in a naked sexual embrace with his wife, the writer Bára Nesvadbová. Březina sued, and won damages and a public apology.