A UK Sports Journo Determinedly Live-Blogged A German Press Conference, Despite The Fact He Couldn’t Speak Any German
"WHY DON'T WE HAVE A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE ACROSS THE GLOBE???"
Ben Bloom is an established UK sports journalist who’s worked with The Telegraph for the past two years. In this time, he’s exhaustively covered international cricket, Premier League Football and many events at the Commonwealth Games; in general, he really knows his shit.
So, when news broke today that German football club Borussia Dortumund’s long-time manager Jürgen Klopp was reportedly asked to leave his post, Bloom was all over it. He wrote a news story outlining the facts as they stood, made a timeline of the guy’s career, set up a live blog, and started speculating about the potential fallout. There, he eagerly awaited the start of a press conference called on the matter and readied his readers for the news.
12.32: “BORUSSIA DORTMUND CONFIRM JURGEN KLOPP WILL LEAVE THE CLUB ON JULY 1”
12.34: “Klopp has just sat down to face the media…”
12.37: “Right we have a slight issue.”
Much to the journalist’s surprise this press conference about a German football team, held in Germany with a room full of German people, was actually all in German — a language that Ben Bloom does not speak.
Naturally, it took him a moment to accept this.
“Why can’t I speak German???????” he said at 12.39, presumably screaming at whichever sadistic celestial bodies had aligned to bring him to this moment in his life.
But then, in a matter of minutes, he got his head back in the game. Why? Because he’s a goddamned journalist, and journalists bring people the news.
#BREAKING
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Huge scoop.
Then, because The Telegraph is one of the most read news publications in the UK, some charitable souls started feeding him translations. But Bloom couldn’t do much but blindly re-report them. “I’m afraid I cannot verify how correct those sentences is,” he said, with awkwardly incorrect English grammar. “I’m rapidly realising that I am as close to useless right now as I have ever been in my life.”
In between reporting more crucial details of the press conference like the fact “a chap with a lovely slicked back hairstyle” was talking, Bloom violently careened between self-pity and desperation.
“I am genuinely sorry about this,” he said. “I realise this is highly unprofessional. Don’t tell my boss I can’t speak German. He thinks I’m translating this press conference word for word.”
“Oh what?? Sky Sports News have just played a snippet from the press conference and they had a bloke translating Klopp’s words. How did they find a German speaker and the Telegraph was lumbered with me? I fear I have damaged the reputation of this once great institution considerably.”
At 12.56, he broke completely.
As news of this journalist’s wild decline into madness far surpassed the fact a soccer coach was stepping down from his role, Bloom has become a sensation overnight. Ironically, his name even trended in Berlin.
Perhaps because of this, a Telegraph editor has updated the blog making light of the situation and assured everyone he hasn’t been fired. But Bloom has taken little consolation, posting the following on Twitter just 14 hours ago.
Was ist geschehen? Und wo soll das noch hinführen?
— Ben Bloom (@benbloomsport) April 15, 2015
It is maybe the most upsetting thing I’ve ever read.
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You can embrace all of this beautiful schadenfreude by reading the full blog here.