Imagine the leading US TV network getting the President's name wrong. That's what happened on Saturday night when public broadcaster ARD accidentally called Germany's head of state Klaus Köhler - his fisrt name is Horst. The printed press relished  in the gaffe.

The embarrassing mistake came during ARD’s Tagesschau program, the German equivalent of The CBS Evening News or World News Tonight.

In a pre-taped story about the opening ceremonies of the World Athletic Championships in Berlin, the network flashed Klaus Köhler instead of Horst Köhler on the screen under the president's image.

Not a big deal, one should think. But the month of August is what the German press calls Saure Gurken Zeit, or summer lull,  when hard news are hard to come by (that's why we at germerica are runing it).  A bit of schadenfreude may have slipped in as well, as the printed press has a hard time competing whith electronioc media in terms of speed.  

Though German presidents have very little formal power in contrast to the chancellor, it is a high-profile position. The 66-year-old Köhler, who used to run the International Monetary Fund, regularly ranks as the country’s most popular politician. He was
also recently re-elected as president in May and the election was was
widely covered in the German media.

“We made a mistake,” said ARD duty editor Ekkehard Launer. He said it was an “especially turbulent time” before the 8 pm
broadcast Saturday evening with multiple stories arriving late and
requiring additional work. “In the heat of the moment, the wrong words slipped in,” Launer said.

It isn't the first time that Tagesschau technicians have screwed up, and worse bloopers are occuring daily on the world's media outlets.

Last year, the leading German network confused the German and Belgian flags. Both use the same colors but in different sequences.

Similar gaffes have occured on competing networks. ZDF, the ARD's main competitor, had to interrupt their Heute-Jounal (Today) news show after anchorman Claus Kleber was presented as Loriot to the nationalwide audience, and the commercial station N-tv used the Mercedes-Benz logo in a story about VW and Porsche.

germerica