Britain braces for 'Ice rink Monday' after roads chaos saw cars abandoned and skid out of control - as Met Office issues new yellow warnings for ice tomorrow after brutal -12C 'snow bomb' blasted Cumbria
It's almost possible to admire how the Mail squeezed so much alarm into one headline. Not something a mere trainee could do.
9 comments:
But the problem with all the alarmist headlines is where do you go next to grab readers' attention? And how far from reality can you stretch the news?
For instance 'the war on drugs'. Really? How many soldiers were deployed. What was the result of the various battles. If 'the war' was as important as other wars why is no-one concerned that we have continuously lost all engagements?
When you read of the vituperation lavished on unfavoured politicians... and then they return as the lauded Lord.
And don't get me started on the words that duelling economists use. Crash, chaos, end of western civilisation, all to be recycled next week.
I know it's not exciting to use measured and balanced words... but I'm fed up of reading over-the-top language. Apocalyptically so.
DJ - I'm not entirely sure how they get away with it. Maybe language is so degraded that this kind of headline isn't as far removed from measured and balanced words as we might suppose. People automatically translate the hype downwards without noticing.
Strangely, they may rely on that portion of the public who never read, watch or listen to them and so are always oblivious to their excesses.
Shock Horror Drama Probe!
Not something a mere trainee could do.
They seem to write the whole newspaper these days. I suspect that somewhere is a room full of bound and gagged adult sub-editors.
Oh, for the days of 'Phew, what a scorcher'...
Tammly - it could just be clickbait nobody actually reads beyond the headline, how would we know?
Jannie - mix the words, add one and it's a Shock Probe into Horror Drama!
Sam - soon to be replaced with AI.
Scrobs - and we laughed at that one.
@Sam Vega
"They seem to write the whole newspaper these days. I suspect that somewhere is a room full of bound and gagged adult sub-editors."
I suspect we are seeing the result of there being too many English/Media/Literature graduates. They all want a job in the media and the cost of employing them is comparatively low - but they have learned to use flashy language rather than present balanced debate.
I first noticed this when the New Scientist effectively stopped reporting science but instead switched to reporting science gossip. Gossip is cheap and no-one re-visits it later to confirm that it was true. 'Proper' science journalism is far more demanding and businesses have to pay more to obtain that expertise.
DJ - I stopped reading New Scientist for the same reason, it switched to gossip and also moved towards an uncritical reporting of grant-hunting hype. It became a "science comic" in the words of one of my colleagues.
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