Please, call him Christian

Unlike the estimable Adam Gaffin, I don't think the Boston media are paying excessive attention to the trial of Christian Gerhartsreiter.* No one's "flooding the zone" here; it'd be strange not to follow a story that got this much attention at the outset to its fruition; and even though many of the details emerging in court aren't new, they're so surreal that they're worth rehashing.

But I do have a question: why is *anyone* reluctant to say that this crazy-ass cat is, in fact, Christian Gerhartsreiter?

By way of example, I give you a paragraph from a recent Boston Globe piece on the trial: 

Rockefeller, 48, is accused of kidnapping the couple's 7-year-old daughter last summer after a bitter divorce and custody dispute. Prosecutors say he is really a Bavarian con man named Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter who has used a slew of aliases to ingratiate himself in aristocratic circles. [emphasis added]

Now, compare that to the Globe's August 2008 dispatch from Bergen, Germany, Gerhartsreiter's hometown:

Clark Rockefeller started life in this humble resort town in the foothills of the Alps, not as the privileged son of European royalty, but as Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a mischievous Bavarian schoolboy and beloved son of a homemaker and a graphic designer.

His younger brother, Alexander, standing on the porch of the family's stucco two-story home with blue shutters and geraniums blooming in the flower boxes, confirmed that Rockefeller is his brother.

Once you've got Gerthartsretier's brother saying, "Yeah, that's Christian!" (or Ja, das ist mein bruder, or whatever), why write as if there's any doubt?

Like the Globe, the Herald went to the trouble of sending a reporter to Gerhartsreiter's hometown--and that's the first thing editor Kevin Convey mentioned when I asked him about the Herald's willingness to call Gerhartsreiter Gerhartsreiter:

"We're calling him Gerhartsreiter because we went to Germany and confirmed that's name," Convey said this afternoon. "And that's the name he used when he went into this coutnry. I don't see any point beating round bush. It can get a little complicated when you have someone like [Gerhartsreiter's ex-wife] Sandra Boss talking about 'Rockefeller,' but I think we have the power to resolve that in our stories."

I've contacted the Globe to ask about that paper's approach; if I hear back, I'll post an update here.

*NOTE: Not "Gerhartstreiter," as I originally wrote.