Trollface Could Grace the Cover of a Leading Belgian Newspaper

Now who could possibly be behind this? Leading Belgian newspaper De Standaard, with a circulation of close to 100,000 and a readership of over 360,000, is holding, in its own words, an “extremely irresponsible” contest called “Verover de voorpagina” (“conquer the front page”) in which readers get to submit ideas for a future front cover for the paper. The Internet then votes on these ideas, so you know how that goes; whoever wins could have their submission on the actual, in-print front cover. Currently leading the pack, with over 6,000 votes versus the 1,300 votes of the #2 submission: Internet mascot Trollface.

Voting runs until December 26th at (Belgian) midnight; the winner could appear on the cover of the print edition on Monday, January 3rd, barring major breaking news.

De Standaard (Google Translated):

The editors of The Standard opt out of any proposals the ultimate winner. This proposal will be on Monday, January 3 on the front page of The Standard appear. The Standard reserves the right to publish content or form to request modifications. Optionally, the winner will be invited in the newsroom.

The winner will be personally informed of the fact that his / her proposal, and invited me in the newsroom.

Publication on the front page of The Standard of January 3 is subject to big news. In the case of very important news, the publication of the front page of the younger delayed. We will issue on January 3 in the paper to communicate.

The editors reserve the right to the teasers on the front page of Jan. 3 to fill in major news items are also put on the front.

Also, the most-voted-upon submissions at the end of each month win a subscription to De Standaard and a Wi-Fi 16 GB iPad for their creators.

The editors of De Standaard have included a few provisions by which they might conceivably get out of publishing this (“The removal of images is no story, there need be no justification to be given and there is no correspondence”), but while Trollface is an Internet in-joke, it’s not really offensive, and it’s certainly an appropriate reaction to national news as often as not. This could be fun.

You can vote here.

See also: 5 self-illustrative guides to trolling

(De Standaard via Reddit)