Correct, the proper terminology is Spiegel Online (SPON) and "Der Spiegel". SPON is very popular among Germans and has been one of the best journalistic sources of Germany. It's also received the embassy cables last year:
For this very story: It has received some new presentation slides in the recent days that it's currently publishing. The FAZ and other German newspapers are referencing SPON for this particular story. So for this story SPON is the first/primary source.
That magazine cover is tomorrow's so that makes sense, but the way he worded it suggests that two days running it was on the "front page".
And I think that using "on their front page" when talking about the website of a magazine is misleading, in part simply because it suggests magazine not website, and in part because being on the front page of their website really means absolutely nothing when it comes to importance - or at least, it means no more than saying "Spiegel wrote a story about it". The front page of their website is just the hub where they link off content as and when it gets published, both important and less important items.
I get that it's popular, but still.. maybe it's just a cultural difference, I don't think in the UK we would specify website (e.g. "it's on the front page of The Guardian's website"), and even then I don't think we'd refer to the front page of a newspaper/magazine's website as a big deal, we'd maybe specifically highlight how prominent on the front page it is.
I mean, on Spiegel.de right now, sure the NSA story is at the top, but other items that could be described as being "on the front page" include BBC Nature: The man who lives with the grizzlies, F1: Hulkenberg Sauber team threatens to bankrupt and Jennifer Lopez in Turkmenistan, to pick out a few.
Do you work for NSA? Is it really your interest to discuss technicallites instead of story itself? Do you also think the main story and focus should be on Snowden instead of espionage?
Why does my curiosity about the wording of someone's comment imply that this is more important than the story itself? I presume you too will at some point today have a conversation with someone, whether online or offline, about something other than the NSA. That's the beauty of being a species capable of thinking about more than one thing at once.
I wasn't complaining about the original comment, I was literally curious to check whether I had misunderstood the publishing schedule of the magazine, or whether it was just worded in a way that didn't quite make sense to me.
