The tabloid “Heute” is actually known for making every little story big. But today the medium is very quiet: For the first time in history, the newspaper reports absolutely nothing regarding the events of the past day.
VIENNA – 12 noon, editorial meeting. “Is there really nothing relevant that happened today?” exclaims publisher Eva Dichand in desperation, while also bidding on a Gerhard Richter painting on the Dorotheum website. Everyone present shrugs their shoulders. After months of political scandals, house searches and resignations, the political waters have grown still – too still for a blustering riot newspaper to operate.
“And you? Don’t you have any ideas either?” Dichand barks at a detective who is searching the meeting room for evidence. He can’t help her either. Dichand snorts. If she had another cell phone, she would throw it at him.
“Well… my aunt from Wels is having an affair with her capoeira teacher Alejandro,” pitches a young journalist. Everyone yawns. “We already had eight pages in there yesterday. Nothing else? Hasn’t some idiot gone back into the tram with his Pax shelf? Or at least with his bedside table? Have we phoned all the psychopathic reader reporters?” Dichand asks. Silence, only the rustling of the evidence bags can be heard.
emergency folder
“What are the others writing?” she grumbles and reads oe24.at, orf.at and the standard. She is startled, her face is everywhere. “Ah, nothing, nothing, they don’t have anything either…”, Dichand smiles embarrassed and closes the laptop. An officer takes it from her and bags it.
In desperation, Dichand pulls out a folder labeled “Emergency” from under the meeting table. “Then I’ll have to bring out the heavy artillery,” she explains and begins to leaf through the pages. “Fear for master builder Richard Lugner: shocked syphilis finding, Baba Wanga sure: Kartnig wins Dancing Stars, SPÖ advertisements: everything clean, Sebastian Kurz: he plays so sweetly with his son, Gernot Blümel: this is how the sex symbol lives today.”
It’s headlines like these that made the free paper what it is today: a paper you use to wipe away a kebab stain on the subway.
Krone also at a loss
“Christoph, do you have any stories today? That can not be! We’re pretty shocked,” Dichand yells into the phone. But her husband, Krone publisher and Nepo baby Christoph Dichand, is also at a loss: “We’re looking at it now. Nothing seemed to have happened yesterday, what a pity. We have already sent a team to the Brunnenmarkt, hopefully the criminal foreigners will do something that endangers democracy.”
Ray of light on the horizon
What the Dichands don’t know yet: The story lull might end soon. In Klosterneuburg, Heinz-Christian Strache is currently working on a letter with his lawyer. “I was right, always was,” he murmurs. Today, Krone and oe24.at have to publish a reply tomorrow at Strache’s request, with the wording: “We really are the biggest whores on the planet.”
Saving idea
Two minutes before the editorial deadline. There is still no story. Dichand shifts nervously in her office chair.
When the police officer lifts up some evidence, he has a brilliant idea: “Hmm, well, I think a well-known editor will soon be traveling on the subway with Swedish curtains,” interjects the police officer. Dichand nods in satisfaction, the story goes on the “Maybe” pile. “We can do it differently,” she smiles.
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