In short, Levin had seen an unexpected opportunity to buy into one of the most prestigious brands in Swedish media. But Serner’s management was not enthusiastic, to put it mildly. On the contrary, people were heard to mutter that Millennium was old-fashioned and had a left-wing bias and a tendency to end up in fights with important advertisers and business partners. The plan would have come to nothing if Levin had not argued his case so passionately. But he had insisted. In a broader context, he argued, investing in Millennium represented a negligible amount, which might not yield vast profits but which could give them something much greater, namely credibility. Right now, after the cutbacks and blood-letting, Serner’s reputation wasn’t exactly their prime asset. Taking a stake in Millennium would be a sign that the group did after all care about journalism and freedom of expression, even if Serner’s board was not conspicuously keen on either. This much they were able to understand, and Levin got his acquisition through. For a long time it looked like a winning outcome for all parties.
Serner got good publicity and Millennium kept its staff and was able to concentrate on what it did best: carefully researched, well-written reportage, with Levin himself beaming like the sun and even taking part in a debate at the Writers’ Club, where he said in his usual modest way, “I believe in virtuous enterprise. I have always fought for investigative journalism.”
But then... he did not want to think about it. At first he was not really bothered by the campaign against Blomkvist. Ever since his former colleague’s meteoric rise in the reporting firmament, Levin had rejoiced secretly whenever Blomkvist was sneered at in the media. This time, though, his joy did not last. Serner’s young son Thorvald became aware of the commotion — social media made a big thing of it — even though he was not a man who took any interest in what journalists had to say. But he did like power and he loved to intrigue, and here he saw a chance to score some points or simply to give the older generation on the board a good drubbing. Before long he had encouraged the C.E.O. — who until quite recently had not concerned himself with such trivial matters — to declare that Millennium could not be given special treatment, but would have to adapt to the new times like all of the other products in the group.
Levin, who had just given Berger a solemn promise that he would not interfere in the editorial line, save perhaps as a “friend and adviser”, all of a sudden felt that his hands were tied and he was forced to play some intricate games behind the scenes. He did everything he could to get Berger, Malin Eriksson and Christer Malm at the magazine to buy into the new policy, which was never in fact clearly expressed — something that flares up in a panic rarely is — but which somehow entailed making Millennium younger and more commercial.
Naturally Levin kept repeating that there could be no question of compromising the magazine’s soul and provocative attitude, even if he was not sure what he meant by that. He only knew that to keep the directors happy he needed to get more glamour into the magazine and reduce the number of lengthy investigations into industry, since they were liable to irritate advertisers and make enemies for the board. But of course he did not tell Berger this.
He wanted to avoid unnecessary conflict and, standing there in front of the editorial team, he had taken the trouble to dress more casually than usual. He did not want to provoke anyone by wearing the shiny suits and ties which had become de rigueur at head office. He had instead opted for jeans, a white shirt and a dark-blue V-necked pullover which was not even cashmere. His long curly hair — which had always been his rebellious little gimmick — was tied in a ponytail, just like the edgiest journalists on T.V. But most important of all he kicked off in the humble tone he had been taught to adopt on his management courses.
“Hello, everybody,” he said. “What foul weather! I’ve said it many times before, but I’m happy to repeat it: we at Serner are incredibly proud to be accompanying you on this journey, and for me personally it amounts to more even than that. It’s the commitment to magazines like Millennium which makes my job meaningful; it reminds me why I went into this profession in the first place. Micke, do you remember how we used to sit in the Opera Bar and dream about everything we were going to achieve together? And we weren’t exactly holding back on the booze, ha ha!”
Blomkvist did not look as if he remembered. But Levin was not to be put off.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all nostalgic,” he said, “and there’s no reason to do so. In those days there was much more money in our industry. Just to cover some piddling little murder in the middle of nowhere we would hire a helicopter and book an entire floor at the poshest hotel, and order champagne for the after party. You know, when I was about to go off on my first overseas trip I asked Ulf Nilson, foreign correspondent at the time, what the deutschmark exchange rate was. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, ‘I set my own exchange rate.’ Ha ha! So at the time we used to pad our expenses, do you remember, Micke? Maybe we were at our most creative back then. In any case, our job was just to knock out some quick copy and we still managed to sell any number of issues. But a lot has changed since then — we all know that. We now face cut-throat competition and it’s not easy these days to make a profit in journalism, not even if you have Sweden’s best editorial team, as you do. So I thought we should talk a little bit today about the challenges of the future. Not that I imagine for one moment that I can teach you anything. I’m just going to provide you with some context for discussion. We at Serner have commissioned some surveys about your readership and the public perception of Millennium. Some of it may give you a bit of a fright. But instead of letting it get you down you should see it as a challenge, and remember, there are some totally crazy changes happening out there.”
Levin paused for a moment and wondered if the term “totally crazy” had been a mistake, if he had tried too hard to appear relaxed and youthful, and whether he had started off in too chatty and jocular a vein. As Haakon Serner would say, “It is impossible to overestimate how humourless underpaid journalists can be.” But no, he decided, I’ll fix this.
I’ll get them on my side!
Blomkvist had stopped listening more or less at the point when Levin explained that they all needed to reflect on their “digital maturity”, and so he didn’t hear them being told that the younger generation were not really aware of Millennium or Mikael Blomkvist. Unfortunately that was precisely the moment at which he decided he had had enough and went out to the coffee room. So he had no idea either that Aron Ullman, the Norwegian consultant, quite openly said, “Pathetic. Is he so scared that he’s going to be forgotten?”
But in fact nothing could have worried Blomkvist less at that moment. He was angry that Levin seemed to think consumer surveys might be their salvation. It was no bloody market analysis that had created the magazine. It was passion and fire. Millennium had got to where it was because they had all put their faith in it, and in what felt right and important without trying to guess which way the wind was blowing. For a time he just stood there in the pantry, wondering how long it would take before Berger came to join him.