Liam Quin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Wikideas1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
It started, one Saturday in May, with a 1980 biography of Bismarck. Then came more orders – sometimes minutes apart, at odd hours, with no thematic logic. A screenwriting guide. An illustrated book on birds of prey. All of them ordered from Matthias Wagner's bookshop in Köpenick by a Canadian company called Zoom Books.
"When I looked at my phone in the morning, I'd see it: the robot had ordered again," Wagner told rbb. "It was a nice little bonus. But we all knew in the trade: it's a flash in the pan."
...once the books are scanned, they are obliterated.
HEIST is a worker-owned online magazine, founded by writers and editors who after years working across Berlin's media landscape believed something essential was missing.
Anyone living here has felt a growing gap between the city as it actually is and the version being served up by mainstream outlets. We experienced that disconnect firsthand. We saw political censorship shape coverage decisions and felt the weight of billionaire ownership land directly on our work. It reached a point where we could either keep going along with it, or try to build something better.
That's why we created HEIST.
And look at you: scrolling, clicking, squinting at blurred text just to get a little further. If you'll go to that much effort to read HEIST, you can surely give us one email. That's the whole price, and the rest of the story is right behind it.
Real journalism costs money. We commission the hard-hitting, well-reported, long-form work everyone wants to read but nobody seems to publish anymore.
The future of this city is still in the balance. We intend to be part of that struggle. We hope that you'll join us.
