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Monday 6 April 2020

Guess the Guardian headline




Europe’s Roma communities are often living on polluted wastelands and lacking running water or sanitation in their homes as a result of “environmental racism”, a report has concluded.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a pan-European network of green NGOs, found Roma communities were often excluded from basic services, such as piped drinking water, sanitation and rubbish collection, while frequently living at or near some of the dirtiest sites in Europe, such as landfills or contaminated industrial land.


One of my minor browsing games is to pick out media headlines which look like Guardian headlines. I play the game because I'm right often enough to be amused at how easy it is. Many of us poke fun at the Guardian, but it survives and seems to provide what its readership needs. If the Guardian didn't do this particular flavour of ideological silliness some other outfit would. 

The interesting questions are surely obvious enough. Is the ideological silliness the deliberate cultivation of a particular readership? If so, is this one way in which useful idiots are cultivated? Sounds like a conspiracy theory that latter question but the Guardian is so batty, so middle class and yet curiously prominent in the media arena.

5 comments:

Sam Vega said...

I do like the idea of "environmental racism", though. Basically if you just pitch up on someone else's waste land, you ought to get piped water and your rubbish taken away. Presumably if you had those things it would be called a "house".

The Jannie said...

Shouldn't that have read "Roma communities were often choosing to live without permission on private land which includes some of the dirtiest sites in Europe, such as landfills or contaminated industrial land. contaminated industrial land." Ah, the subtleties of language . . .

Scrobs. said...

It is a 'Big Issue' though...

Mark Wadsworth said...

@ Sam Vega - agreed.

A K Haart said...

Sam and Mark - and then you might worry about the preservation of green belts.

Jannie - and where would the guardian be without language subtleties?

Scrobs - it is, as we are reminded when we go to the Co-op.