Oh no!! What a mistake!!
The new pope has not yet been elected!! That's at least what the left-wing German tabloid "Abendzeitung" (Nuremberg edition) says, on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - one day after the alleged election of pope Ratzinger. The world media got it all wrong!
Here's Abendzeitung's cover of Wednesday, April 20, 2005:
Ratzinger against Martini
Duell in the VaticanStill no new pope - the cardinals don't
agree. One group supports the German
Joseph Ratzinger, the other supports
the Italian Carlo Maria Martini.
And there's more on page 6:
Today the new pope?
Ratzinger and Martini fight for votes -
again black smoke
(Abendzeitung seems to have experienced a sequel to the "Truman trauma".)
Tomorrow at Abendzeitung: Will president Bush be re-elected? John Kerry a strong contender!
Stay tuned...
Don't worry. Another variation of today in the German 'Bild'-Zeitung. It wrote: 'We are the pope' ('Wir sind Papst')- let's find the pope among 80 million. Dona nobis ????
Posted by: cleverle | April 20, 2005 at 04:40 PM
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The first edition of the Abendzeitung (for the next day) is available in the streets of Munich by 6 pm. At that time the Pope had not been elected.
Note from David: I knew someone would present this argument...
Realitycheck, you're wrong: Abendzeitung presented in their Wednesday edition an article that purported to present the
Tuesday
events at the vatican. Read the whole piece, and it's obvious. It's like as if there had been a soccer game on Tuesday afternoon, and the Wednesday edition presented a (bogus) result rather than explaining that the event took place after the deadline of the paper passed (so no result could be shown). The guy who wrote the piece assumed there would be no pope election on Tuesday, and he'd be safe reporting it as a fact. Bad luck...BTW: I bought the paper Wednesday around noon...
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 20, 2005 at 04:59 PM
To clarify: The edition available this morning DID carry the Pope election, of course.
It's not a Truman trauma either as they did not anticipate anything. The press probably stopped at about 5 pm for that edition (on the 19th)
Note from David: I bought the Abendzeitung on Wednesday, noon.
Check my note above.
Yawn...
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 20, 2005 at 05:06 PM
OK, this is off topic. Did anyone notice USA Today's headline this morning:
German conservative named pope; tells Vatican faithful, 'We go forward'
We go forward. The classic Germanism! I had to laugh out loud when I saw it, as you all know German doesn't have the progressive so when they want to say "let's go.", "we're going" or "we go" they'll say "wir gehen".
I've had the hardest time disabusing my German friends of this habit and now the Pope!
Posted by: Frank | April 20, 2005 at 05:20 PM
Frank I don't quite get what you mean. The Pope spoke Italian:
Nella gioia del signore risorto andiamo avanti
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 20, 2005 at 05:31 PM
RC
I don't mean to imply that the Pope actually made the mistake, just the fact that the headline mentions he's german and contains a common germanism struck me as funny.
Like if a headline said "Russian man says Pope in hospital" The newpaper my well omit the definite article cause it's a headline but it happens to coincide with a Russianism.
But you know what they say, if somethings funny and you have to explain it, then it's not funny.
Posted by: frank | April 20, 2005 at 08:29 PM
David, where did you buy the Abendzeitung? If it's not in Munich, then it's likely that you get the first edition even in the morning. Same goes for the Süddeutsche, that has an early edition that is sent abroad and in other German regions. I'm not sure whether the evening edition of the SZ already carried the news because its usually available at 6pm as well. This edition is sent all over Germany and distributed in restaurants or cafes. Subscribers and kiosk buyers in Munich get the morning edition.
I can assure you that the local Abendzeitung this morning had the screaming headline that the Pope is from Munich.
In your early edition the Abendzeitung speculates.
"Dewey defeats Truman" was presented as something that HAPPENED (because everyone thought it was going to happen and the deadline was approaching), not as a speculation.
But anyway, these are boulevard papers. You'll find worse every day. Ever read www.bildblog.de ?
Note from David: "where did you buy the Abendzeitung" ...hmm... why not check my posting and my comment? Would I buy the Nuremberg edition in Munich?
"But anyway, these are boulevard papers. You'll find worse every day." OK, in the future I'll wait for the worst of every day before posting. Simple idiocy won't do.
Anyway, see you at "Sarcasm 101" at you local college.
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 20, 2005 at 09:43 PM
@frank, I get it now: Equal goes it loose!
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 21, 2005 at 12:21 AM
What!? We have a new pope? What happened to the old one? This just in...
Posted by: Quid | April 21, 2005 at 03:06 AM
del.
Note from David: Realitycheck, you are experiencing a severe case of diluted perception of reality. Too bad you need my blog to let the world know.
Let's stop the whole thing. This gets boring.
If you feel you are being treated unfairly in this blog please go to Bildblog and try to comment there.
Posted by: Realitycheck | April 21, 2005 at 01:43 PM