The way to the print magazine with the highest circulation in Germany leads past goats, a church with an onion dome and a sink where extinguishing water is collected for the fire brigade. The publishing house Wort & Bild, in which the pharmacy magazine is located in Baierbrunn, a small town south of Munich. The slogan “Read what makes healthy” is emblazoned on the white publishing house.
Inside, Dennis Ballwieser, 42, is standing in front of the computer. yes he is standing Ballwieser has a height-adjustable desk in his office because it is known to be healthier if you sit and stand while writing and reading. “Sports scientist Ingo Froboese says that you can’t do enough sport in your free time to make up for sitting at a desk all day,” explains Ballwieser.
Then he goes over to the conference room and sits down at the table. They hang on the wall Pharmacy magazine-Cover of the last few years, they are mostly creative, such as the skilfully painted face titled “Tracks on the Skin”. Ballwieser, blue glasses and a blue jacket, seems a little rushed, he sometimes looks at his watch with the orange strap. The company’s podcast expert will be coming soon for an interview, later he will fly to Berlin. Nevertheless, Ballwieser seems present and he gets to the point with his answers. Before it comes to his CV, he wants the current information on pharmacy magazine and sharpen a bit to his role.
Well, Ballwieser says he is the managing director of the Wort & Bild publishing house, but there is another one, Andreas Arntzen, with whom he even shares the office. And although he is editor-in-chief at Wort & Bild-Verlag, he has been one of four for a few weeks. This quartet is responsible for all five of the company’s publications, and together they run an editorial staff of around 100 people. “I don’t do anything alone in the house,” emphasizes Ballwieser, “I see it as we.”
Of course, everyone has their strengths and preferences. Ballwieser has been making the podcast “Nedose Knowledge” for two years, which can be heard daily (except Saturdays and Sundays) from six o’clock. It is primarily aimed “at people who work in the healthcare sector – but also at laypeople”. Ballwieser speaks, for example, about the latest studies, diseases and treatment options. He does this alternately with a colleague who is a doctor. The podcast is his “hobby horse,” says Ballwieser, especially since audio health journalism does not yet exist in Germany.
For a long time he followed two tracks: journalism and medicine
Dennis Ballwieser drove two tracks for a very long time. As a teenager and young adult he was with a school newspaper, with the Süddeutsche Zeitung and as a paramedic at soccer games in the Olympic Stadium and the Allianz Arena. “I was interested in both, and I always asked myself, what interests me more?” He studied medicine, but at the same time he applied to the journalism school in Munich. After the physics exam, i.e. the intermediate diploma, I was accepted at the journalism school on the fourth or fifth attempt. So he went to the dean and wanted to ask for a two-year break without losing his place at college. Ballwieser laughs. “He didn’t understand it at all!”
A lively conversation follows about the Dean’s motives, and in the end one agrees on the interpretation that for some doctors, journalists are, well, socially more settled than medical professionals. But whatever, the dean finally agreed. Ballwieser graduated from the journalism school, then completed his medical studies, was an anesthetist at the clinic of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, switched to Mirror online in Hamburg, returned to Munich in 2012 and worked three weeks a month as an assistant doctor and one week in the editorial department at Wort & Bild. In 2015 he became managing director and in 2020 also editor-in-chief.
Ballwieser is friendly. He always smiles and laughs a lot, he seeks and finds punchlines, and he gives the impression of being a go-getter who enjoys making things happen. And who also believes in being able to make a difference. He probably fills up the energy for it at home. Ballwieser lives in the countryside. With dogs, cats, chickens, sheep, a horse, two children and a woman. His wife Anja is a film animal trainer, for example she trained the dogs of Petterson and Findus.
Does Viagra work for women too?
As a Ballwieser Mirror left, not everyone understood that, this time on the journalists’ side. Ballwieser remembers how it was received by a colleague when he said he was moving to pharmacy magazine. The man looked in disbelief, the message was: This is a descent. But first, the print edition of the Pharmacy magazine, which appears every two weeks, almost seven million readers a month, more than that Mirror, and, secondly, Ballwieser feels better off there. “I asked myself what I could do meaningfully with the journalism I can do,” he says. “And if I can make a difference as a doctor and editor for people’s health, then it is pharmacy magazine the best address.” The core of his work is “to convey health information in a way that laypeople can understand”.
Naturally, the readers are more likely to be 60 than 16, which is why the pharmacy magazine also “pensionerBravo” is called. Ballwieser is a person who doesn’t take it amiss, on the contrary: In January 2022, his team managed the difficult gymnastics exercise of making fun of themselves. They published a “RetireeBravo“, in which there was a love story in the form of a comic (the hero was an empathetic pharmacist) and a Dr. Sommer team answered questions from readers, such as “Impotent from cycling?” or “Does Viagra also work in women?”
He’s now a journalist and no longer a doctor? Is he missing something?
“I miss it every day,” says Ballwieser. “It doesn’t let you go.” There are few jobs that are so meaningful. You are with people “in emotionally stressful and emotionally uplifting moments” and you might be able to help them. “It gives you an incredible amount.” However, Ballwieser does not want this to be understood as a beacon delivered in a flaming speech for his return to a doctor’s office or clinic. “I’m happy that I can do this job and make a difference with a large team.” And occasionally, yes, he’s on the road in the emergency services to feel like a doctor.
25 million circulation
Readers can use the “pharmacy magazine” can be taken to your pharmacy free of charge; 90 percent of pharmacies in Germany have subscribed to it. The magazine is not available in bookstores, kiosks or supermarkets pharmacy magazine belongs to the publishing house Wort & Bild, which also owns the titles Diabetes Guide, baby and family, Senior Guide and medicine appear. Combining print, online, podcast, social media and all publications, the publisher reaches more than 25 million people monthly. word & picture has four editors-in-chief: Julia Rotherbl, Tina Haase, Stefan Schweiger and Dennis Ballwieser.