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We cover artists from around the globe whose work explores and realizes social change. Our goal is to provide a narrative about these activist efforts while simultaneously participating in them. Maintained by The Groundswell Collective since 2007.

Detourning Die Zeit: Attac Circulates Faked German Newspaper

James David Morgan wrote this post at 9:41 am on March 23rd, 2009.

Anti-globalization activists Attac distributed 150,000 fake copies of Die Zeit, Germany’s largest weekly newspaper. Headlines present reports the group said it thinks can become reality within 13 months, from nationalized banks to agreement among global leaders.

The print version (shown below) was distributed in over 90 cities across Germany, and accompanied by a replica of the Die Zeit website, carrying the same headlines.  The organization has made PDF copies available for download.

Die Zeit editor-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo has elected to treat the prank as a marketing opportunity:

Naturally, we can never endorse an imitation of Die Zeit in print or online, particularly not in quality as good as this, but it’s not surprising that Attac chose Die Zeit for this campaign, as it’s the largest national newspaper of quality.

Further official comments by the paper state that Die Zeit will not seek legal action against Attac.

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