NAILING IT

The Late A. J. Liebling occasionally used his "Wayward Press" column in the New Yorker magazine to contrast how various newspapers reported on the same story, who got it first, and how it circulated.
Perhaps most famously, Liebling tracked coverage of the death of a notorious Soviet dictator, whose lingering serious illness apparently befuddled the press in the 1950s.
Liebling wrote: "Inconsiderate to the last, Josef Stalin, a man who never had to meet a deadline, had the bad taste to die in installments."
This week, I couldn't help but wonder what Liebling would have made of August Voegl and the recent media coverage that has made him famous, at least in certain circles.
I first came upon Voegl's story Monday, reading an online account that was published in Sunday's Edmonton Journal in Canada.
The headline read: "Roofer nails down new-found notoriety."
And the story: "August Voegl, 59, nailed himself to the roof of a house in Jennersdorf (Austria), when he ... accidentally shot a four-inch nail into his left testicle with a compressed-air nail gun.
"Apparently the construction worker slipped while working and the nail gun misfired. ... Once Voegl realized he was unable to extract the nail or pull himself away from the roof, paramedics were called in.
"The roofer was airlifted to a nearby hospital where he is apparently recovering nicely after the injury."
That was a tough thing to read on a Monday morning, although reading about it no doubt paled in comparison to Voegl's actual experience.
Curious as to how other papers had covered Voegl's misadventure, I checked around and found that it had been taken seriously in Germany ("Man Nails Testicle to Roof") and somewhat less so in South Africa ("His fiddling on the roof got him nailed").
As best I could tell, the story was broken by Austria Today, a publication in Voegl's home country, in the paper's Oct. 16 print edition.
The story had this memorable lead: "An Austrian roofer who slipped on the job ended up nailing himself to the roof - through his wedding tackle."
Wedding tackle?
That might well have been that, but two days later, the story went on the Austria Today Web site and was thus launched into cyberspace, where it was greedily grabbed by the Web site Ananova.com, which bills itself as "news on the move from the leading site for breaking United Kingdom and world news, sport, entertainment, business and weather stories and information."
At which point the story was picked up by news and entertainment outlets around the world, most of whom then credited Ananova with the story.
I went on the Ananova.com Web site and found Voegl's story in a section called "Quirkies."
Among the other stories was one from the Sun, a British tabloid, under the headline "Dog cocks leg and cuts off power."
The story began: "A dog cut off the power in 148 homes when it cocked its leg on a power cable."
This happened in County Durham, in northeast England. The Sun continued: "Bailey, a Staffordshire bull terrier, went for a wee against a faulty pylon.
"His owner Gary Davies said, "There was an almighty explosion and the whole street lit up. I turned around and the dog was on fire."
The power was off for five hours, the Sun reported, but the good news is "Bailey is recovering at home after being treated for burns."
There was also this: "Aussies told to stop singing in the shower." And the story: "Australians have been told to stop singing in the shower in an attempt to save electricity and water.
"Power supplier Energy Australia says exercising the vocal cords in the bathroom adds an extra 9.08 minutes to a shower."
They must all be singing "Stairway to Heaven."
There was one story from the United States (Florida, of course). The headline: "Gold teeth stolen while owner slept." And the story: "A Florida man claims someone reached into his mouth and stole his gold teeth as he slept.
"Bryan Osteen rang police to complain about the theft (and) told officers that someone entered his bedroom and took the teeth out of his mouth. He said he had friends at his home and believes one of them had something to do with the crime. Osteen said he did not wake up because he is a heavy sleeper."
What would A. J. Liebling have made of the Internet? Liebling used to chide publishers by noting that "a free press belongs to the man who owns one." The Internet belongs to no one, and so to everyone. I think Liebling would have had a grand time covering it. Imagine the headlines if August Voegl had been working on a wall instead of a roof.